They Can Barely Drive, but They’re Flying Planes: The Surprising Rise of Teen Pilots

Nathalia Filgueiras, the 20-year-old co-pilot in a fatal Learjet crash, was part of a growing wave of young people getting an early start in aviation careers. At 17, Parker Allen was training for his pilot’s license, juggling flying with band and swim-team practice. By 21, he was a flight instructor, teaching a new crop of budding aviators.A high-school student flying a plane as part of Rancho High School's pilot program.His youthful appearance would often make his students do a double take, said Allen, who now, at 25, has 1,800 hours of flying experience and is aiming for a job at a regional airline. “They’d look at me and are like, ‘You’re my flight instructor?’” he recalled.Pilots both young and old say they could relate to Nathalia Filgueiras—the 20-year-old co-pilot at the radio in the harrowing seconds before a Learjet crashed into a Florida neighborhood on Sunday. Her dedication to flying in her teens wasn’t an anomaly, but part of a growing wave of young people getting an early start in their pilot careers.Like Filgueiras, many are getting in the cockpit before finishing high school.“You don’t build those years of experience by doing nothing,” said Allen, who caught the aviation bug as a child growing up near the airport in Galesburg, Ill.At 17, Filgueiras already had her private pilot’s license. “Some people think that it’s, like, weird because I can fly planes, but I can’t drive a car,” the then-high-schooler in Boca Raton, Fla., told a local CBS News affiliate back in 2023. On Instagram, her former flight instructor called her “without a doubt the most naturally gifted pilot I have ever taught.”Investigators are currently looking into the specifics of the crash—which killed Filgueiras and eight others on board—and it isn’t clear who was piloting the aircraft at the time. Typically, though, the person on the radio wouldn’t be in control of the plane, aviation experts say. Audio shows Filgueiras stayed on the radio and relayed what was happening during the rapid descent.“That is just unbelievable control,” says Karen Kalishek, chair of the National Association of Flight Instructors.ChartMore teenagers have pursued pilot certificates over the past decade, drawn in part by an industry push to attract more young adults into the field. In 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration estimated that 914 people ages 16 to 19 held commercial flight certificates, up from 693 the year before. (Commercial certificates don’t expire, so people can remain in the same age category the following year.)The industry stepped up its outreach to schools and scholarship programs amid a postpandemic shortage of commercial-airline pilots. Though the shortage has abated, the industry is expected to need to replace thousands more pilots each year.“We see a lot of retirements coming, and the airlines are growing,” said Katie Pribyl, acting co-president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Pribyl herself was flying at 18 in the late 1990s, and by 21, she was working for an airline.Almost always, there is a wait list when high schools adopt AOPA’s nearly decade-old aviation curriculum, she says. More than 34,000 students are enrolled in the courses this school year across more than 1,700 high schools.Rancho High School in Las Vegas admits 60 students to its flight program each year. The teenagers spend the first two years preparing to take the FAA’s written exam, and, by 11th grade, or age 16, log hours in an aircraft. Rancho already has two juniors who have flown solo, says Ryan Ruttan, who coordinates the school’s magnet programs.“Most of us don’t know what we wanna do at 16, 17, 18,” he says. “They’re mature beyond their years.”Emma MitchellEmma Mitchell, a 21-year-old pilot who got her start at 18, said she didn’t know at first what she wanted to do after high school—except avoid an office cubicle. She googled “jobs that aren’t 9-to-5s,” and aviation popped up. After an introductory flight lesson, she was all-in.While she studied for an associate degree for business administration—a fallback plan, she says—Mitchell balanced working 25 hours a week with one day of flying. She then committed to a full-time, accelerated flight-school program and graduated at 20 with a commercial pilot’s license. She now works as a flight instructor to accrue enough hours to apply to an airline.To earn a private certificate, pilots must be at least 17 and have at least 40 hours of flight experience, including 10 hours solo. Pilots must be 18 and have 250 hours of flight time to earn a commercial certificate, though that doesn’t mean they can fly for a major airline.Getting that certification requires being at least 23 years old and having 1,500 hours of flying experience. (Military pilots and those who graduate from an aviation college or university program can obtain a restricted license at 21 with fewer flying hours.) At each level of the certification process, the expectations increase and every person—no matter the age—meets the same standards.“It’s not handed on a silver platter,” said Kalishek, of the flight instructor organization. “They have to pass rigorous evaluations.”Flying charter flights—like the one Filgueiras was co-piloting—is one way pilots build up the hours of experience they need to make the jump to an airline. New pilots learn not only through their formal training but also by soaking up the knowledge imparted in the cockpit by the more experienced captains they fly with.“It works out really well. You’re usually flying next to somebody that has an extensive amount of experience,” says Bob Allen, 60, a former airline pilot (and no relation to Parker Allen) who now runs a business ferrying jets around the world for airlines and lessors. He started flying as a 16-year-old in Lexington, Ky.This week he took to social media to hail Filgueiras and the expertise she developed in her cut-short career.“Many of us were that 18 or 20 year old co-pilot a long time ago,” he posted on X. “And we were good at what we did as I’m certain she was, too.”Write to Allison Pohle at allison.pohle@wsj.com and Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.comGet the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries along with latest US midterm elections update. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.