Flight students praised for calm reaction after bird strike in night sky

    SACRAMENTO, California (KOVR) -- Imagine you're learning to fly a plane when the unthinkable happens: a bird slams into the window while flying at night.

It could have ended in catastrophe. Instead, two young flight students are being praised for their calm reaction when a bird flew through their cockpit window while they were high in the sky.

The photos are worth a thousand words. The bird strike shattered the window of the plane while it was going over 100 miles per hour.

The emergency happened at the Sacramento Executive Airport, and the pilots had just seconds to act. The plane was close to the ground because it happened while the students were practicing landings.

The two students said that these are the moments they train for, so they immediately reverted to muscle memory.

From the moment they hit the bird to the moment they landed, only about 10 seconds passed. But for them, it felt like a lifetime.

"The first thing that comes into our mind when something like this happens is we are going to crash," said student Vanshika Kedia. "Our aircraft lost control due to all of the wind speed coming in but our school holds really great standards."

"For the first five seconds, I got panicked but then I was like, 'I will fly the plane because I don't want to kill anyone — not me, not my friend,' " said pilot instructor Nishi Jan.

The pilots were flying with Advanced International Aviation Academy. For the last 14 years, the school has been teaching them beyond the basics to be able to make quick decisions for a moment like this.

The president and CEO of the school said that this risk management and ability to act as a captain in times of chaos is what their school focuses on, and those two pilots met the moment.