A blind woman from Arizona is set to make history by piloting a plane across the country.
With a few flights already completed, Kaiya Armstrong, 21, will fly from Mesa, Arizona, to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 13 in honor of World Sight Day.
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Armstrong has spent months preparing for this moment.
“I’ve had to go through extensive ground school and in-flight training just to figure out all the ins and outs and all the details,” Armstrong told FOX10. “They were able to get me a poster of the inside and an exact replica, and I was able to Braille it at home, so I put it up on the wall or on the table and I just sit in front of it and practice for hours.”
Armstrong became blind at age 14 and can only see a few inches from her face today.
“It was just like any other day,” Armstrong said. “I got out for a bike ride … but I had to come back early because my vision got really blurry, and we found out the next day from doctors that I had an autoimmune disease.”
With support from the Foundation of Blind Children, Armstrong’s cross-country flight will be part of the Flight for Sight Challenge Event.
No sight? No problem!
Blind 21-year-old Kaiya Armstrong took off from Falcon Field Airport today. She’ll land in Washington, D.C. next week.
Follow her journey and track her flight: https://t.co/57XTZRSDOs pic.twitter.com/qxbk4O18te
— Foundation for Blind Children (@seeitourway) October 7, 2022
“We do a lot of these challenge events to give our kids a chance to prove to the world they can do anything,” Foundation of Blind Children CEO Marc Ashton said. “She’s flying across the country … and it’s going to show the world that anything can be done.”
Tyler Sinclair, a pilot with Leopard Aviation, will serve as Armstrong’s flight guide.
“While Kaiya is piloting, I will be just helping her navigate, helping her just basically keep the plane level,” Sinclair said. “She’s actually really good at it, so yeah, I just give her some small verbal cues … but she does most of the flying herself.”
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Armstrong said she hopes to inspire others with her flight.
“I think the biggest message I want everyone — both sighted and blind — to take away from this is that we don’t have limits,” Armstrong said. “The only limits that we have are the ones that we’ve given ourselves, and I want everybody stop limiting themselves.”
