Van Beek, an 18-year-old boy, has become the UK’s youngest commercial pilot after his mom had to sell their family home to pay his school fees.
He was issued a passenger-pilot license after he got done with 18-month training and completed 150 hours in the air, passing his training excellently.
According to the New York Post, the teenager had always wanted to become a pilot since he was eight years old.
After his mom Frances sold the house, he went to Greece for his $110,592 (N40,089,600) flight school. With the new achievement, he broke the record previously held by Luke Elsworth, who got his license at the age of 19.
“Flying has always been my dream. There was nothing else that I had ever wanted to do, and there is nothing I would contemplate doing. You don’t have a single epiphany where you realize that you want to be something or do something, it comes from experience,” he said.
He attributed his love for air travel to the fact that his mother travelled a lot and was always taking him along, adding that he loves everything about flying.
Van said that his love developed into a strong passion, and glad that the formal training did not discourage him.
His average exam score was 90.6% as he also graduated above his peers. The young pilot said that his mother sacrificed a lot for him.
On the other hand, his mom said that she wanted her son to accomplish whatever she could not do because she did not have a proper education.