{"id":184536,"date":"2026-04-03T15:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184536\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:21:16","slug":"laguardia-hudson-river-crashes-shine-spotlight-on-how-li-student-pilots-train-for-emergencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184536\/","title":{"rendered":"LaGuardia, Hudson River crashes shine spotlight on how LI student pilots train for emergencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Throughout his childhood, whether he wanted\u00a0a quick ride home from a camping trip or a glimpse from above of\u00a0the sunset, 17-year-old James Downey could count on his uncle, a retired airline pilot, to be there for him in his\u00a0single-engine Cessna.<\/p>\n

Now a student pilot hoping to become the second airline pilot in his family, Downey,\u00a0of East Islip, awoke last month\u00a0to a text from his uncle\u00a0telling him about the crash hours earlier of an Air Canada Express<\/a> jet at LaGuardia Airport, and the deaths of two pilots.<\/p>\n

The news was “so very hard to hear,” the East Islip senior said, but he still climbed into a cockpit a few days later and flew an instructor to Hartford, Connecticut,\u00a0his farthest flight to date on what has already been\u00a0a two-year journey.<\/p>\n

“They worked so hard to get to that point, and for them to be stopped at such a young age is horrible,” Downey, who studies aviation through Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services<\/a>, or BOCES, said. “But you follow your dream. In any industry there’s a risk. … I’m still 100% dedicated and pushing forward to get to that point that they were at too.”<\/p>\n

A commitment to flying<\/p>\n

He’s like thousands of teenagers, young adults and others across Long Island and the rest of New York who have committed themselves to the seemingly endless hours it will take to pilot a commercial jet\u00a0\u2014 just like the Air Canada pilots, both graduates of Canadian\u00a0aviation institutions. Getting their initial license, the\u00a0private pilot certificate, can set a student\u00a0back more than $10,000, according to Shiv Anand, who owns Aspire Aviation<\/a>, a Republic Airport-based flight school. By the time they are certified to fly passengers for an airline, that price tag could range from about\u00a0$75,000 to six figures.<\/p>\n

Student pilots balance high school, college or busy work schedules\u00a0with\u00a0studying Federal Aviation Administration regulations, meteorology,\u00a0what to do when a plane catches fire or if another emergency arises, and logging the required hours of flight time\u00a0in what amounts to a flying classroom \u2014\u00a0with an instructor and solo \u2014 before they are ready for a private pilot’s license.<\/p>\n

Some eventually switch roles and become flight instructors.<\/p>\n

Kyle Fassberger’s instructor would often\u00a0lower\u00a0his plane’s engine to idle to simulate\u00a0how he would handle the aircraft’s failure.\u00a0The first time that happened, said Fassberger, who expects to graduate from Farmingdale State College’s aviation program<\/a> in spring 2027, he “froze up.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Barry Sloan<\/p>\n

The more you practice for it, the more proficient you get and it becomes almost second nature if it were to really happen.<\/p>\n

\u2014Kyle\u00a0Fassberger, aviation student<\/p>\n

“The more you practice for it, the more proficient you get and it becomes almost second nature if it were to really happen,” said Fassberger, 30, of Queens. “Your training kicks in.”<\/p>\n

Strange, but exhilarating<\/p>\n

During these simulated emergencies, students look for the safest place to land if left with no other choice,\u00a0pitch the plane’s nose upward\u00a0to maintain altitude for as long as possible and run through a memorized checklist to troubleshoot\u00a0engine and other system issues.<\/p>\n

Once they can handle an emergency, they are ready to fly solo.<\/p>\n

“It feels strange to have such a responsibility,”\u00a0Fassberger recalled of his first flight alone, but also\u00a0“very exhilarating.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The steep demands on student pilots prepare them to\u00a0handle\u00a0an\u00a0in-flight crisis\u00a0with\u00a0their lives, and potentially the\u00a0lives of others, in the balance, said Stuart Bain, one of Downey’s aviation instructors at BOCES.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Barry Sloan<\/p>\n

I try and scare them a little bit, like \u2018hey listen \u2026 we\u2019re teaching you guys to do something that could potentially kill you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014Stuart Bain, aviation instructor<\/p>\n

“I try and scare them a little bit, like \u2018Hey listen … we\u2019re teaching you guys to do something that could potentially kill you,\u2019” said Bain, 64.\u00a0“So if you\u2019re not confident or comfortable being here and doing the work to be here, the door’s over there.”<\/p>\n

What awaited\u00a0the\u00a0Air Canada pilots on the ground as they guided the Bombardier CRJ900<\/a> on final approach\u00a0allowed them little time to summon their safety training. All appeared normal just before the jet touched down and hit a\u00a0Port Authority fire truck on the LaGuardia\u00a0runway as it was responding to another plane.\u00a0Capt. Antoine Forest\u00a0and\u00a0first officer Mackenzie Gunther, both flying for\u00a0Jazz Aviation on behalf of Air Canada, died on impact. The plane carried 72 passengers and four crew members, the Port Authority said. A total of\u00a041 people aboard the plane were hospitalized.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Two Air Canada pilots were killed after their plane collided with a fire truck on March 22. Credit: Newsday\/James Carbone<\/p>\n

The crash shocked\u00a0Juliana Dolezal, 18,\u00a0a senior at\u00a0William Floyd High School and a flight student at BOCES.<\/p>\n

“It is sad for the pilots that were killed in the collision,” Dolezal said.<\/p>\n

No change of plans<\/p>\n

Her goal of becoming an\u00a0airline pilot has not changed.<\/p>\n

“At the end of the day,” she said, crashes like the one at LaGuardia “are very rare occurrences.”<\/p>\n

Compared to learning how to drive, learning how to fly is “more complicated,” she said. Flight students learn\u00a0far more procedures and\u00a0regulations so they can\u00a0protect pilots, passengers and people on the ground.<\/p>\n

Before she took a\u00a0road test to obtain her New York State driver’s license, Dolezal, like all prospective motorists, had to pass a Department of Motor Vehicles knowledge test to get a learner’s permit and log 50 hours of supervised driving, 15 of which had to occur after sunset.<\/p>\n

Getting her private pilot’s license will come only after she has passed a written exam administered by the FAA. She must also\u00a0log\u00a0a minimum of 40 hours in the sky \u2014 including 10 solo hours, three at night and three more during what’s known as\u00a0“cross-country” flights, where students fly to airports beyond where they train\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to\u00a0earn the necessary “endorsements” from her instructors to take an oral and practical exam with an FAA-approved examiner in the cockpit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Barry Sloan<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very important that you know your regulations, because if you don\u2019t, you could end up in a bad situation.<\/p>\n

\u2014Juliana Dolezal, flight student<\/p>\n

“That book is very thick,” Dolezal said of the FAA manual she must master. “You need to know a lot and it\u2019s a lot to memorize, and it\u2019s very important that you know your regulations, because if you don\u2019t, you could end up in a bad situation.”<\/p>\n

Seal of approval<\/p>\n

Endorsements from flight\u00a0instructors and passing written exams ensure student pilots are ready to fly on their own, just as the DMV’s written and road tests gatekeeps access to a learner’s permit and driver’s license. Students in the two-year aviation program at BOCES need their instructors to provide a similar endorsement at the end of their first year spent in the classroom before they return for year two.<\/p>\n

“If we don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to be trusted enough to be in an airplane with a flight instructor, let alone by themselves,” Bain said, “then we don\u2019t endorse them to come back.”<\/p>\n

High schoolers like Dolezal, Downey and Harrison Savicki, 18, of Stony Brook,\u00a0have been eligible for\u00a0a private pilot’s license since\u00a0the mid-20th century, when the federal government set the minimum age for earning a certificate at 17. In 2024, the majority of student pilots nationwide, or 55%, were between 16 and 34, according to the most recent FAA\u00a0report on active license holders<\/a>.\u00a0Just over 8% were between 16 and 19. Approximately 10,700 students were learning to fly, either on airplanes, helicopters or other aircraft, from 3,057 certified instructors in New York State in 2024.<\/p>\n

Most students log between 60 and 90 hours in the cockpit\u00a0before they are ready for their “check flight” to earn their certificate, said Asad Abdullah, the lead flight instructor at Aspire Aviation.<\/p>\n

\"visualization\"\/<\/p>\n

“No one gets it at 40 hours,” Abdullah, 31, said of the private pilot certificate.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s maneuvers you have to excel at before you go up” for the exam,\u00a0he added. “We practice emergencies, we practice wing fire, engine fire.”<\/p>\n

Real world emergency<\/p>\n

It was a real world emergency in early March\u00a0that underscored the risk of every flight for\u00a0Savicki,\u00a0who also envisions a future as a\u00a0commercial airline pilot.<\/p>\n

Hours before engine\u00a0failure forced\u00a0a Cessna 172 that took off<\/a> from Long Island MacArthur Airport to land after dark March 2\u00a0in an icy stretch of the\u00a0Hudson River upstate \u2014 forcing a\u00a0flight instructor from Southampton\u00a0and a 17-year-old flying student from Locust Valley to swim\u00a0to shore\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Savicki said he’d been practicing\u00a0takeoffs and landings in the same single-engine plane with an instructor from the same\u00a0MacArthur Airport-based private flight school,\u00a0Long Island Flying.<\/a><\/p>\n

He recalled the\u00a0exercise as\u00a0“overall a great flight.”<\/p>\n

Later that day, the other\u00a0instructor and his student pilot\u00a0climbed into the Cessna and embarked on an intended round-trip from MacArthur Airport to New York Stewart International Airport in Orange County.<\/p>\n

The pilot, Liam D’Arcy, 31, of Southampton, put the plane down in the Hudson\u00a0north of New Windsor after radioing to air traffic controllers <\/a>about his increasingly dire circumstances.<\/p>\n

\"visualization\"\/<\/p>\n

“I don’t think we are going to make the airport,” D’Arcy said in an audio recording.<\/p>\n

A preliminary report released<\/a> by the National Transportation Safety Board on March 25 determined the plane’s engine “began to run extremely rough before it lost total power.”<\/p>\n

“I almost couldn’t comprehend it … that could have been me in the plane,” Savicki said. “I mean, it was a 17-year-old student after all. It really just put things into perspective.”<\/p>\n

Teaching to fly<\/p>\n

A full NTSB report, which will detail a “probable cause of the crash along with any contributing factors,” is expected to be released within 12 to 24 months from the day of the incident, agency\u00a0officials previously told Newsday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Barry Sloan<\/p>\n

I almost couldn’t comprehend it \u2026 that could have been me in the plane.<\/p>\n

\u2014Harrison Savicki, aviation student<\/p>\n

To teach others how to fly,\u00a0instructors must study more FAA regulations, log 250 flight hours and pass additional exams to get their commercial pilot license and then become a certified flight instructor, or CFI. David Veksenfeld, a 2024 graduate of Farmingdale State College’s aviation program, checked all those boxes. Since he\u00a0graduated from an accredited four-year aviation program, he only needs 1,000 flight hours to become an airline pilot. Those without a relevant degree need\u00a01,500 hours.<\/p>\n

The median annual salary for commercial pilots not flying for airlines stood at about $123,000 in\u00a02024, but the bottom 10% earned less than $60,000, according to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data available. Airline pilots earned substantially more, with a\u00a0median annual salary of $226,600 during the same period.<\/p>\n

It can be\u00a0a\u00a0“nerve-racking” journey teaching others on his way to the cockpit of a commercial airline, said Veksenfeld, 22, of Queens,\u00a0but “if you can teach it, that means you have been able to have mastery of the skills.”<\/p>\n

A new airline pilot\u00a0can\u00a0expect a salary between $80,000 and $90,000, according to Janie Daly, the director of Farmingdale State’s aviation center at Republic Airport. But\u00a0after logging the required hours, pilots may be forced to wait\u00a0before higher-salaried\u00a0and more prestigious opportunities arise.<\/p>\n

“This is definitely a very cyclical” industry,\u00a0Daly said. “Right now, hiring is just starting to pick up again. Every few years we go through highs and lows of when the airlines … are hiring, and based on where you are in that cycle, it can be much more competitive.”<\/p>\n

Close to his goal<\/p>\n

With 1,300 flight hours to his name, Gregory Suarez is approaching the end of what has already been an eight-year journey toward getting his airline pilot certificate. As a kid living near Kennedy Airport, Suarez\u00a0said he marveled at how “big and heavy” planes appeared and wondered how they “could stay in the sky.”<\/p>\n

\"Flight<\/p>\n

Flight instructor and airline pilot hopeful Gregory Suarez works with a student, Stephanie Arango, at Republic Airport in Farmingdale. Credit: Newsday\/Howard Schnapp<\/p>\n

As an adult, he teaches others with a similar\u00a0childhood fascination\u00a0at Aspire Aviation to\u00a0complete his 1,500 hours.<\/p>\n

“Most people that end up wanting to [fly], even the kids that are in high school, they have … a good maturity level,” said Suarez, 33, of Inwood. “They know it\u2019s fun, but also serious at the same time and they treat it as such.”<\/p>\n

Nicholas Grasso covers breaking news for Newsday. A Long Island native, he previously worked at several community newspapers and lifestyle magazines based on the East End.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Throughout his childhood, whether he wanted\u00a0a quick ride home from a camping trip or a glimpse from above…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,74228,8015,9,24,63,8016,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-184536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-laguardiacrash","10":"tag-nassau","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-suffolk","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}