A 42-year-old instructor, Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, jumped from a Cessna 150 during a training flight over rural fields in Argentina’s Río Segundo department, leaving his 22-year-old student alone at the controls. The aircraft was flying at an altitude of approximately 250 meters. The student, identified in reporting as Rosario, held a pilot licence but had not completed the flight hours required for independent operations. Before leaving the aircraft, Bertazzo told her, “You know what to do, continue,” information from TN. She maintained control and landed safely.
Despite the shock, the trainee pilot stabilized the aircraft and radioed the control tower to report the emergency. She returned to Coronel Olmedo aerodrome, where emergency services and the Flying Parrot Córdoba flight school team responded. Rural police and rescue personnel searched for Bertazzo. Authorities later seized the aircraft as his disappearance and presumed death became the subject of a judicial investigation in Córdoba.
Suicide was reported as a working hypothesis, but it has not been established as a final judicial finding. The instructor’s motives had not been officially disclosed, and investigators were considering other possibilities. Flying Parrot Córdoba director Eduardo Álvarez said colleagues had not suspected Bertazzo intended to die by suicide. He added that the school had only recently learned Bertazzo was receiving psychiatric treatment. The student was described as being in a severe emotional state after landing. Álvarez credited her training and professionalism with helping her bring the aircraft down safely.
Bertazzo was a commercial pilot who had previously worked in neighboring Chile. The case has drawn attention to the decisions surrounding the flight and the demands placed on trainees when an emergency develops in the cockpit. It also echoes broader concerns about safety and emergency preparedness in transport, similar to those raised by other recent emergencies, including the evacuation of buildings in Barcelona following a major sinkhole.
The student’s safe landing was the immediate outcome of the flight, while Bertazzo’s fate and the cause of the incident remained under judicial investigation. The inquiry was described as being handled by the federal judiciary in Córdoba. Investigators had not publicly established the instructor’s motive, so the suicide hypothesis remained unconfirmed.
