Distance learning and computer-based training in easa-regulated pilot education during the covid-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced approved training organisations (ATOs) to move theoretical pilot instruction online, replace classroom examinations with computer-based testing, and ration the irreducibly hands-on flight phase. This review synthesises peer-reviewed evidence published between 2019 and 2025 on how pilot training adapted within the European Union Aviation Safety Agency regulatory framework, organising it into a four-domain framework: regulatory accommodation, online theoretical instruction, constrained practical training, and organisational-economic effect. A semi-systematic review of thirty-eight sources drawn from Scopus, Web of Science, and Crossref was conducted, with the case of a Bosnian-Herzegovinian ATO serving as an illustrative anchor. The synthesis shows that regulators permitted distance learning through competency-based provisions, that online theory proved feasible despite genuine assessment-integrity risks, that simulation and emerging virtual-reality tools only partially offset lost flight hours and the documented danger of skill decay, and that organisations which adapted early reported resilience. The review's contribution is an integrative framework connecting regulatory, pedagogical, technological, and economic strands treated separately in the literature. Distance learning emerges as a durable gain, assessment integrity and skill-decay monitoring as unresolved problems, and a hybrid model as the likely steady state