The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos hated helicopters for the longest time, until Lauren Sanchez happened to him. The Emmy-winning journalist, licensed pilot, and founder of aerial-filming company Black Ops Aviation brought him back to the skies after years of avoiding them. Today, the couple not only flies together regularly, but Bezos is even working on his own pilot’s license. His award-winning pilot wife had such a profound effect on him that the man who once swore off choppers is now comfortable in the air again, often hopping into the cockpit with her.
It’s ironic that he first fell from a helicopter and later fell for a helicopter pilot. While the world’s fourth-richest man bought the $500 million Koru as the third wheel into his relationship with now-wife Sanchez, she brought the chopper and called the chops.
The past told a different story. Back on March 6, 2003, in far west Texas, Bezos swore off helicopters entirely after a morning flight went wrong. Strong wind in the area apparently blew the helicopter into trees, and it then crashed in a nearby stream, according to CNN. He suffered a minor head laceration and later joked that his key lesson was “avoid helicopters whenever possible”. For nearly 16 years after that day, he stayed grounded when it came to rotary wings.
Lauren, the pilot, changed it all-
Today, a bolder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez fly together. As Sanchez shared, “We love to be together and we love to work together… We fly together. We work out together. We’re together all the time.” He sure has come a long way from the ‘no helicopter’ phase, and proof also lies in the $575 million fleet featuring Koru and Abeona.
The 247-foot support vessel Abeona is known to trail the mothership, carrying toys and tenders that were not wanted on the 416-foot Oceanco beauty. The main toy aboard is the Airbus Helicopters H145 that boasts a range of 351 miles. She could easily whisk Bezos from Santorini to Mykonos and back.
The mother of three has on multiple occasions shared Instagram stories showing off her skills, sometimes in the company of A-listers like Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, and her son Nikko, who performed a daredevil skydiving stunt from the $11 million chopper.
While Jeff Bezos hasn’t attempted such antics, his real triumph was overcoming his fear, a feat Sanchez helped him achieve, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The first lady of Koru flies Bezos in its private chopper-
Back in 2023, the Emmy-winning journalist flew her billionaire fiancé to Koru megayacht, the largest sailing yacht in the world, in the chopper in Italy. Eyewitnesses in Sardinia said she made three to four attempts to land the chopper before successfully touching down on Abeona. It shows the trust and faith the business magnate, worth $246 billion, had in his lady love.
In fact, he helped her not only to tide him over but also gave her wings through Blue Origin to explore her lifelong dream of going to space. Guess they truly are the Brady Bunch, as she shared with the Wall Street Journal, who love to support each other, overcome fears, achieve dreams, and build a life laced with admiration and adventure in equal measure. Beyond getting Bezos on the chopper, the 55-year-old author also aims to bring more women into helicopters. She founded Black Ops Aviation in 2016 and notes that fewer than nine percent of pilots are women. If she can bring Bezos onboard, Sanchez can indeed achieve the other goals too.
