As a pilot trainee, Andreas Lubitz followed a well-worn path for young people around the world aspiring to one day fly for a major commercial fleet.
He headed to Phoenix, Arizona.
Lubitz, 27, is believed to have deliberately crashed a Germanwings flight in the French Alps on Tuesday, killing all 149 people onboard and himself. Investigators said he had hidden an illness from his employer, Lufthansa.
The path that ended so tragically this week began when Lubitz was a teenager and learned to fly gliders as a member of a flying club. By the time he applied to work for Lufthansa, he already had more experience than many new employees.
Under the European system of training pilots, airline companies screen applicants and hire them before training begins. That’s in contrast with the American system, in which pilots complete four-year flying colleges, at their own expense, before entering the job market.
Lufthansa sent Lubitz where it sends many of its young employees: to its training facility in Goodyear, Arizona, about 20 miles outside of Phoenix, one of the country’s 15 biggest metropolitan areas.
Brent D Bowen, dean of the college of aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said Phoenix was a world capital for flight training, with students coming to study there from across the globe.
“It’s been that way since European pilots were sent here during World War II for training,” Bowen said. “Lots of them.”
Bowen said a combination of consistently ideal flying weather, low costs and abundant airspace accounted for Phoenix’s appeal.
“The reason it’s so popular for European flight schools or flight students is that the cost of flight training is prohibitive in Europe,” he said. “In many places in Europe, you have to file a flight plan and wait a day to go fly. In the United States, especially in a place like Phoenix, especially a suburb, you don’t have those limitations.”
Lubitz attended the Lufthansa school, based at the Airline Training Center Arizona (ATCA), beginning in 2008, but suspended his studies the next year, according to the airline. Lufthansa declined to comment on why Lubitz’s training, which he was eventually allowed to complete, had been interrupted. The German newspaper Bild reported that ATCA had designated Lubitz as “not suitable for flying”.
Bowen said it’s not uncommon for a student pilot to suspend training. “There’s a variety of reasons,” he said. “It could be financial, it could medical, it could be for vacation – we just don’t know.”
The phone line at ATCA was busy throughout Friday morning and early afternoon.
The school’s website identifies ATCA as “a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa Flight Training”. The school also trains pilots for KLM and the German air force, according to its website. KLM did not reply to a request for comment.
Other flight schools in the area include CAE Global Academy, which trains pilots for British Airways and Air Asia, and Transpac Aviation Academy, which is a training hub for Chinese pilots.
At least one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks trained at a Phoenix-area flight school. Hani Hanjour, who flew an airplane into the Pentagon, underwent hours of simulator training at JetTech international flight school, which closed after the attack.
