July 8, 2026
"A pilot jumped out of the door of a moving plane to his death, leaving the student he was teaching to fly to land the aircraft by herself. "
"Flight instructor Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, 42, was found dead following the incident, which took place in Toledo, central Argentina, on Saturday.... The student said Bertazzo told her, 'You know what you have to do, carry on,' before taking off his headset and seatbelt, opening the door and jumping out of the plane...."
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41 comments:
“was found dead following the incident”
…what was left of him…
That's one way for the flight instructor to tell the student that they are ready to solo.
Glad she was able to land safely. Imagine if that was your first flight instruction?
It didn't say in the link how experience the student was - but she must have been.
Perhaps he was trying to be clever, but forgot the parachute?
oh shoot.
Most students can land with no trouble. I soloed with 8 hours total time, and was landing fine well before that.
"'You know what you have to do, carry on,'"
Weird, you think he would have said something in Spanish. Like adios. Or geronimo.
Oh shoot, no chute.
I asked a former co-worker who had a pilot's license, and often flew his family in his little plane, if his wife could get the plane down if something happened to him. He responded the plane gets down on its own.
A superhero origin story.
Vuela con Dios, amigo.
maybe the trainee was showing him videos from The View? Would explain everything!
Talk about trial by fire!
"the plane gets down on its own."
Well, sure, eventually, but not necessarily in a way the passengers are going to like.
I recognize that people committing suicide are not in their right minds, but this was so cruel and so dangerous for the student.
For what it's worth, the account I read on Twitter indicated that he grabbed his phone before jumping.
"the plane gets down on its own."
- As long as you don't make one bad turn on final and spin into the ground
- As long as you don't have obstacles at either end of the runway
- as long as there aren't significant crosswinds
-...
At least he left her with the wherewithal save herself. These pilots who commit suicide by taking everybody on board with them really are the most selfish bastards imaginable.
This lesson she won't forget.
"Moving plane" has the connotation of moving along the ground.
Excellent way to cure grade inflation. Might cut down graduation rates dramatically.
Definitely feels like a metaphor for contemporary leadership in so many areas of life.
I wonder if he yelled Geronimo.
You have to love these wacky Latins.
“It's just this war on inflation and that lying son of a bitch, Milei !”
Did she still have to pay for the instruction and entire flight? OR just half.
My impression from watching movies and TV, is that someone can land any plane if they're "talked down".
The instructor could have committed suicide the same way without putting someone else's life at risk.
It started when he told Rosario to calm down.
I assume he had seen her land before, and was OK with that. Still, not a cool thing to do.
You ever have an argument, and storm out of the house with no shoes on? It's like that.
The gravity of the situation is muting my response.
Has anybody said he died doing what he loved?
Cold-hearted bastard.
My impression from watching movies and TV, is that someone can land any plane if they're "talked down".
For certain values of the word "land". The one that counts is the one you can walk away from, which doesn't necessarily leave the airplane in flyable condition.
According to an AI search, there have been several dozen such "talk-down" cases in the last three or four decades, none of which is documented to have ended in a fatal crash. But undoubtedly there was a number of cases where the pilot was incapacitated and no non-pilot passenger was able to make radio contact or avoid a fatal crash.
That was a Cheers episode!
What happens to the plane is irrelevant. If you're going solo after your "instructor" jumped out half-way, all that matters is you land and survive. Hopefully uninjured.
The plane is the owners lookout.
Cheers had an episode where one of Diane's old flames pretended to be dead and Sam/Diane had to fly the plane. No landings were involved. IRC, Lucy had to land a plane. And I'm sure other sitcom characters did too. It was a standard Hack plot.
Alaska is heavily dependent on small planes to provide transportation to its many bush communities. When we lived there in the 1980s someone offered classes to teach people how to land the plane if the pilot became incapacitated.
Something seems odd about this story. Either there's more to it (lovers' quarrel?), or much less (did it happen?).
Nobody does it better that Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett, with Jim Backus passed out in the back. And that was a twin engine rig, mind you.
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" reference noted.
He really wanted to do it and figured he couldn't exactly jump out if he was alone on the plane. Probably in his mind he was being responsible. I agree nuts but imagine the damage if he had let the plane crash in a neighborhood or deliberately targeted a building. We've seen that too.
What could happen to an old fashioned?
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