EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — At just 26 years old, El Pasoan Jordan Wright became one of the youngest Captains for United Airlines.
Since a young age, Wright said he always had an interest in cars, motorcycles, and planes and was introduced to the world of flying through family friends who were pilots. During his senior year at Coronado High School, he went out to the Santa Teresa Airport where the Red Arrow Flight School is located.
“The day you go out there, you get to go up in a plane. They call it a discovery flight. So, they take you up and man, I fell in love with it,” Wright said.
Wright said after that first trip, he got the “flying bug.” He said the first time he flew a plane he found it exciting a scary.
” It was a little scary for the first couple of seconds. But then once we got off the ground, I was like all right this is sweet,” Wright said.
According to Wright, all plane rides are different because of many factors like weather, landing, approach, and more.
Wright started off his flying career flying small planes at Red Arrow and then flew small cargo planes for Sierra West Airlines. He then worked his way up into ATI Jet, a company based out of El Paso National and then flew for Spirit.
Now as Captain, he said his responsibilities are different. As Captain, he is now in charge of making sure a plane is safe and ready to fly.
“The captain overseeing the entire operation, making sure the flight is legal to go, it’s safe to go, looking at the flight plan, the flight released, making sure that we’re going to, we got everything we need, that the plane is taken care of maintenance-wise, that it’s safe,” Wright said.
Wright said his faith, parents, family, wife, friends, and mentors are the reasons he was able to achieve such an impressive accomplishment at a young age.
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