Lauren Sánchez Bezos Gives a Glimpse at Her Pilot Skills in Helicopter Selfie

It’s up, up and away for Lauren Sánchez Bezos!

On Thursday, Sept. 4, the former journalist gave Instagram followers a glimpse at her helicopter piloting skills with a post to her Stories.

“Collective up 🚁,” the 55-year-old wrote in the onscreen caption. 

In the photo, she sports a pair of aviation headphones and a lightly tinted pair of aviator sunglasses. Viewers get a small glimpse of blue water, docked boats and palm trees off in the distance through the aircraft’s window.  

This is far from Sánchez Bezos’ first time in the cockpit. Following her career in television news, the former Extra host went on to get her pilot’s license and start her aviation business. 

“I was always around aviation,” the mom of three who married Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in June, told PEOPLE last year about her childhood in Albuquerque, where her parents owned a flight school. 

“One day I told my dad, ‘I think I want to learn to fly,’ “ Sánchez Bezos recalled. “It may have been the best day of his life.”

When the Emmy award-winner was 40-years-old, her dad helped her find an instructor in California. Eventually she got her license and soon after, she created Black Ops Aviation, a female-owned and operated aerial filming company. 

According to a 2017 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sánchez Bezos worked as a consultant on Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. At the time, she had recently finished working on Catherine Hardwicke’s Miss Bala, starring Gina Rodriguez. 

“It was an incredible experience because I think only 3% of helicopter pilots were women at the time,” Sánchez Bezos said. “Now I think it’s about 6%.”

In August 2024, Sánchez Bezos celebrated her son Evan’s first solo helicopter flight with a now deleted post on Instagram. 

“There’s a special kind of trust that comes when you watch your kid take off on their own for the first time,” Sánchez Bezos wrote about her son, 19, in the caption. “It’s about letting go, but also knowing they’re more than ready. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, and so deeply rewarding all at once.” 

“Today wasn’t just about a solo flight, it was the beginning of something bigger, @evan_whitesell took a step forward into his own story,” she added. “So proud you 🤍🚁.”

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Sánchez Bezos shares son Evan and daughter Ella, 17, with her ex-husband and businessman Patrick Whitesell. She also shares son Nikko, 24, with her ex-boyfriend, former NFL player Tony Gonzalez. She married Jeff Bezos in Venice in June 2025.

A love of flying also inspired Sánchez Bezos’ first New York Times bestselling children’s book, The Fly Who Flew to Space. The story follows Flynn the fly, who gets caught in the cockpit of a rocket ship and then goes on a wild adventure through space.