Kanpur: A trainee pilot and an instructor were killed Thursday when a training aircraft crashed in Kanpur along the banks of Ganga, a senior police official said.
The Tecnam aircraft operated by Garg Aviation took off around 1130 am and crashed about 20 minutes later near Nathapurwa village in the Katri area, Commissioner of Police Raghubir Lal told PTI.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
Instructor Sachin Bhatia from Gujarat and trainee pilot Abhishek Pujari from Karnataka died in the crash, the officer said, adding that Bhatia had around 3,000 hours of flying experience.
Police and fire personnel rushed to the site, cordoned off the area and secured the wreckage as evidence for investigation into the crash, the police commissioner said.
Police said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will examine the aircraft’s airworthiness, maintenance records and other technical aspects.
Preliminary information suggests it was a twin-engined aircraft.
Videos from the crash site showed the aircraft reduced to a wreck, with debris scattered around the area.
A seat was also seen outside the wreckage, though officials have not confirmed whether the pilots attempted to escape the plane.
The aircraft, which had been with Garg Aviation since 2023, had no maintenance-related deficiencies, the company claimed.
Commissioner Lal, Additional Commissioners of Police Vipin Tada and Sankalp Sharma and Chief Fire Officer Deepak Sharma went to the spot following the crash.
