Moments after telling his student to “carry on,” an Argentinian flight instructor threw himself from a plane, his body crashing to the ground 850 feet below. Now his father has shared a detail that may explain why.
On July 4, 42-year-old flight instructor Leandro Andrés Bertazzo headed out on what colleagues believed would be a routine lesson with a 22-year-old student pilot in Toledo, Argentina.
“That day, we saw Leandro like any other. He arrived cheerful, kissing everyone as usual,” Flying Parrot Córdoba flight school director Eduardo Álvarez told La Nacion. “The only thing that stood out was that, instead of coming in his own car as usual, he had asked a student to pick him up at the house where he lived with his parents in a neighborhood in the city of Córdoba. They were chatting away, and everything seemed fine.”
“We didn’t notice anything unusual, nothing that could have led to this outcome,” Álvarez added of the incident involving Bertazzo, who had been with the school in Coronel Olmedo for a decade, earning several licenses, including Airline Transport Pilot (ATP), first-class commercial pilot and flight instructor.
‘You know what you have to do’
Nothing about that morning hinted at what would happen next. But, Bertazzo’s second training flight that day would soon become the focus of an investigation by Argentine authorities.
According to CNN affiliate TN, Bertazzo was instructing a student – known only as Rosario – aboard a Cessna 150G when he made a shocking decision.
The student, identified only by her first name, Rosario, reportedly told investigators that Bertazzo turned to her and said, “You know what you have to do, carry on.”
Authorities say he then removed his headset, put away his cellphone, unfastened his seatbelt, opened the aircraft door and threw himself from the plane while it was flying at an altitude of about 850 feet.
‘Something in his psyche’
Despite the unimaginable circumstances, Rosario kept control of the aircraft and safely landed the Cessna, according to Del Sur Diario. Once she landed, she then contacted emergency services and directed rescuers to the area where she had seen Bertazzo fall.
His body was later found, leaving colleagues and loved ones struggling to understand why he jumped.
“There’s a very close student-instructor relationship in a professional sense, but none of us who flew, nor any of us who saw him, could have detected that he was going to make the decision to jump from an aircraft. Clearly, there was something in his psyche,” Álvarez shared with Del Sur Diario. “While we are obligated to not fly if there’s even the slightest situation that prevents someone from being physically fit to fly – and that’s a very clear directive – how can you detect this situation without knowing the background?
“We’re all shocked,” he shared, adding that Rosario, who “piloted the plane to the airfield and landed perfectly,” was also in “complete shock.”
Father shares new insight
As investigators continue piecing together Bertazzo’s final moments, his family has revealed new information about what the pilot had been dealing with in the days before the flight.
According to La Nación, Bertazzo’s father said his son had been going through a “rough patch” and had visited a psychiatric clinic just days before his death.
The revelation came as a surprise to many of Bertazzo’s colleagues, who told local media they had no indication the man, who was single with no children, was struggling.
“It’s impossible to think about it or understand it, but the human mind is so complex,” Álvarez said.
Authorities have not determined exactly what led to the incident, and the investigation remains ongoing.
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