Foreign students fill Florida skies, but communication, airspace woes grow

On any given day, the skies over South Florida are filled with student pilots from India, China and other foreign lands learning the rudiments of flight. Most hope to become professional pilots.
Their growing numbers have been a boon to the local economy as well as to flight schools that specialize in training foreign pilots. One of those, Dean International in Miami, has become so busy that it bought 32 extra training planes and hired 23 additional instructors. “They have a big economic impact on this area,” Robert Dean, the school’s owner, said of the foreign students. “Every single one of them goes out and buys a laptop. They spend money in restaurants and to occupy housing.”
Yet, the students, who now number in the hundreds each year, also have put a strain on South Florida’s airspace, which already is bustling with airline and corporate planes, authorities said.
They are a particular headache for air traffic controllers, who must communicate with a large number of inexperienced fliers who don’t always understand complex or rapid-fire instructions in American-accented English.
“You have to speak slower. You can’t condense transmissions,” said Jim Marinitti of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami. “They frequently ask controllers to repeat instructions.”
And, simply by virtue of the fact that they add to the congestion in the sky, other pilots must keep a sharper lookout. In December, a plane flown by a student pilot from India and another plane collided in the air, killing both pilots. The accident is still under investigation.
The students are sure to keep coming, and in ever greater numbers.
Because of furious growth in civil aviation in Asia, notably in India and China, combined with the decline of the U.S. dollar, the number of foreigners learning to fly in South Florida has exploded, with more than 500 arriving in the past year alone.
With students’ time here limited, they undertake a demanding training regimen, as South Florida’s year-round good weather allows them to take accelerated courses. Most will pay more than $30,000 to earn their commercial licenses and obtain the skills to fly in poor visibility conditions and in larger planes.
Then comes the reward. After their training is done, aviation analysts say, the graduates are virtually certain of landing a high-paying job because many Asian airlines and corporations are buying hundreds of new planes and need pilots.
According to aviation authorities in India, that country has fewer than 3,000 pilots now — yet will need more than 15,000 during the next two decades. The current shortage is so severe that Air India last year turned to the Indian Air Force to supply it with experienced pilots. Other airlines were forced to hire foreigners.
Pan Am International Flight Academy at Miami International Airport is currently training about 200 students from India. After arriving with no flying experience, they learn to handle jet simulators within six months.
Judi Blas, an academy spokeswoman, said one reason so many students come to South Florida is India lacks flight schools.
Kemper Aviation flight school, based in Lantana, markets directly in India and has a section on its Web site geared to appeal to Indian students. As a result, it has become one of the most popular flight schools in South Florida for Indian students.
Two of Kemper’s Indian students died in recent flight accidents.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the investigations into both accidents are still in the preliminary phase.
Before foreigners can enroll in a U.S. flight school, they must obtain a visa, generally allowing them a two- to five-year visit, and they must speak English fluently. When the Indian flight students leave South Florida, they generally have amassed 275 hours of flying time, Dean said. That is enough to get them hired to fly jetliners in India, though the airlines then require additional training.
Sharad Mangal, of Delhi, is one of the many Indian students who now fly through South Florida skies, yearning to work for an airline.
“I just want to fly,” said Mangal, 21, who is taking lessons in a two-seat, single-engine Cessna 152 at Pelican Airways.
03/03/08 Ken Kaye/South Florida Sun-Sentinel