Modern Slavery in a Texas Flight School



How a sketchy aviation academy drove a foreign student to suicide.

This is a preview of a premium episode. If you like our content, please become a patron to get more premium episodes like this one, as well as all of our public episodes ad-free!

We're talking about an aviation school in Denton, Texas that is accused of driving a Chinese student to suicide in 2019. According to plaintiff accusations, this aviation school had Chinese students mopping floors, cleaning toilets, and holding the doors open for passers-by, rather than getting the flight training they had paid for when they came to the US to learn to be airline pilots. 1, 2, 3

The school also let an airplane fly despite repeated engine failure events according to an NTSB Report about a crash that killed another Chinese student and the student's 25 year old American instructor. Predictably, at least one of the owners of this school lists a history of employment and contracts with companies like Halliburton, Texaco, etc. 4, 5


1. Marshall Reid. Chinese parents sue Denton County aviation academy over son's death archive copy. Denton Record-Chronicle. September 2020. (archive copy

2. Reddit: Chinese parents sue.... /r/denton subreddit. September 2020. 

3. Reddit: Denton aviation academy photos. /r/denton subreddit. October 2020. 

4. Megan Gray-Hatfield. ‘Our hearts are heavy’: Memorial set up to honor 2 killed in plane crash. Gainesville Daily Register. July 2019. 

5. NTSB. Aviation Accident Summary CEN19FA238. Accidents App. August 2019. 

You must be logged in and have a username in your profile to view comments.