Instructor jumps from plane over Argentina, student lands safely

A flight instructor opened the door of a Cessna 150, removed his headset and seatbelt, and jumped from the aircraft while a 22-year-old student kept flying over rural Toledo in Argentina’s Córdoba province. The student, Rosario, then messaged the school and landed the plane safely, while federal investigators began examining how the cockpit exchange ended with one occupant dead in a field minutes later.

The instructor was identified as Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, 42, a pilot of airline transport, a commercial pilot first class and a flight instructor at Flying Parrot Córdoba, in Coronel Olmedo. Rosario already held a private pilot license, but she had only limited flying hours and was still required to fly with an instructor or safety pilot. She later described Bertazzo telling her, “Vos sabés lo que tenés que hacer, seguí para adelante,” or, “You know what you have to do, carry on.”

Eduardo Álvarez, the school director, said Flying Parrot Córdoba activated an emergency protocol after Rosario alerted the school by message. He said Bertazzo had flown with another student earlier the same day without incident and had arrived for work seeming normal, greeting colleagues as usual. Álvarez described him as a friend and “a beautiful person,” and said Rosario was shocked but handled the landing with professionalism and calm.

The aircraft touched down safely, and a search found Bertazzo’s body in a field minutes later. The plane was not damaged, and the student brought it in without further incident. Argentina’s Federal Justice is investigating the case, with authorities still working to establish the circumstances and motive behind Bertazzo’s death.

One of the questions now facing investigators is how a trained instructor, with a decade of flight experience and active duty that day, ended up abandoning a student mid-flight. Another is what protections existed in the cockpit and at the school level, and whether those safeguards were enough when a pilot in command appeared to be in crisis.

That scrutiny is sharpened by the report that Bertazzo had previously received treatment at a neuropsychiatric institute, a fact his family knew but colleagues did not. The case has turned a routine training flight into a test of mental-health screening, supervision and the limits of in-flight oversight, even as Rosario’s composure kept the emergency from becoming a second tragedy.