On July 4, 42-year-old flight instructor Leandro Andr\u00e9s Bertazzo headed out on what colleagues believed would be a routine lesson with a 22-year-old student pilot in Toledo, Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat day, we saw Leandro like any other. He arrived cheerful, kissing everyone as usual,\u201d Flying Parrot C\u00f3rdoba flight school director Eduardo \u00c1lvarez told La Nacion. \u201cThe 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 C\u00f3rdoba. They were chatting away, and everything seemed fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t notice anything unusual, nothing that could have led to this outcome,\u201d \u00c1lvarez 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You know what you have to do\u2019<\/strong> According to CNN affiliate TN, Bertazzo was instructing a student \u2013 known only as Rosario \u2013 aboard a Cessna 150G when he made a shocking decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The student, identified only by her first name, Rosario, reportedly told investigators that Bertazzo turned to her and said, \u201cYou know what you have to do, carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Something in his psyche\u2019<\/strong> His body was later found, leaving colleagues and loved ones struggling to understand why he jumped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d \u00c1lvarez shared with Del Sur Diario. \u201cWhile we are obligated to not fly if there\u2019s even the slightest situation that prevents someone from being physically fit to fly \u2013 and that\u2019s a very clear directive \u2013 how can you detect this situation without knowing the background?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re all shocked,\u201d he shared, adding that Rosario, who \u201cpiloted the plane to the airfield and landed perfectly,\u201d was also in \u201ccomplete shock.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Father shares new insight According to La Naci\u00f3n, Bertazzo\u2019s father said his son had been going through a \u201crough patch\u201d and had visited a psychiatric clinic just days before his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The revelation came as a surprise to many of Bertazzo\u2019s colleagues, who told local media they had no indication the man, who was single with no children, was struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to think about it or understand it, but the human mind is so complex,\u201d \u00c1lvarez said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Authorities have not determined exactly what led to the incident, and the investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before passing this story along, please share your condolences to Bertazzo\u2019s loved ones in the comment section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On July 4, 42-year-old flight instructor Leandro Andr\u00e9s Bertazzo headed out on what colleagues believed would be a routine lesson with a 22-year-old student pilot in Toledo, Argentina. \u201cThat day, we saw Leandro like any other. He arrived cheerful, kissing everyone as usual,\u201d Flying Parrot C\u00f3rdoba flight school director Eduardo \u00c1lvarez told La Nacion. \u201cThe …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15042,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15040\/revisions\/15042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Nothing about that morning hinted at what would happen next. But, Bertazzo\u2019s second training flight that day would soon become the focus of an investigation by Argentine authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As investigators continue piecing together Bertazzo\u2019s final moments, his family has revealed new information about what the pilot had been dealing with in the days before the flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n