Tuskegee Airmen introduce teens to aviation careers

From left, Kyera Sanders, Eric Manzo and Wil Anderson try out life preservers under the eye of Southwest Airlines flight attendant instructor Patrick Valles during a Friday tour of the airline's flight attendant training facility at McCarran International Airport.

Valles talks to students participating in the Aviation Career Education Academy, sponsored by the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals and the Tuskegee Airmen's Western Region.

People with the Aviation Career Education Academy walk beneath a plane Friday while touring Southwest Airlines' operations at McCarran International Airport.

“Leave everything. This way out.”

“Leave everything. This way out.”

The two flight attendants repeatedly shout in unison as they swing open the plane’s large doors in a swift motion and usher passengers toward them.

“Leave everything. This way out.”

The message is clear, but high school students sitting in the rows closest to the doors don’t know what to do. They are stunned.

This is normal, explains Patrick Valles, pausing the emergency evacuation drill inside a Boeing 737 fuselage cutout on Friday.

“Research has shown that 75 percent of customers are stunned and bewildered,” said Valles, a 15-year flight attendant and instructor at Southwest Airlines’ flight attendant training facility inside McCarran International Airport.

This deer-in-the-headlights reaction is why flight attendants are trained to repeat the same simple messages over and over, he told 25 black students from across the West who were visiting the Las Vegas airport as part of a weeklong Aviation Career Education Academy program.

The academy, sponsored by the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals and the Tuskegee Airmen’s Western Region, took the students to Nellis Air Force Base on Wednesday to see the fighter jets used by the Thunder­birds air demonstration squadron.

“We got to touch them,” said Malcolm Powell, a freshman from San Francisco who wants to be a pilot.

The academy ended Saturday with flights aboard a Cessna.

“It’s about broadening their horizons,” said Rod Gillead, vice president of the Tuskegee Airmen’s Western Region, noting that the group tries to show academy participants where hard work can take them.

The academy is in its second year.

The group spent their time behind the scenes at McCarran meeting Southwest pilots, flight attendants and airplane mechanics to hear about jobs and the business.

“Everybody wants to be a pilot, but there’s so much more,” Gillead said.

By the end of the week, students were interested in careers they knew nothing about, like air traffic control, he said.

But the cockpit controls are still where it’s at, as seen in the barrage of questions asked of pilots.

“I want to do it again next year,” said Kyera Sanders, a student at Clark County’s Rancho High School, which offers an aviation program.

Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at
tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.