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Student pilots prepare for emergencies at ASU in Mesa

Posted at 7:19 AM, Apr 20, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-20 13:32:24-04

The emergency that occurred on Southwest Flight 1380 is fresh on the minds of many, especially those in the aviation industry. 

Right here in Arizona, future pilots are learning how to handle in-flight emergencies, just like the one the pilots of Flight 1380 handled. Inside the Arizona State University Polytechnic School in Mesa, students and flight instructors go over a variety of scenarios they could see in the real world. 

Mike Edmonds is an ASU alum but is now a pilot for a major US airline and teaches students in the CRJ-200 cockpit simulator at ASU. Students enrolled in the professional flight program at ASU train and prepare for in-flight emergencies to help equip them for their training with the airlines after graduation.

"We do this over and over again, throughout different variations of emergencies to get them to be calm, that's exactly what we want," said Edmonds. 

"Everything that you learn is exactly what you're gonna get at the airline, so this prepared me for my time when I got hired on with the airlines," he said. 

ASU's Polytechnic Campus in Mesa has five state-of-the-art simulators student pilots train in, as well as an air traffic control program.