A 23-year-old Indian was among two student pilots who were killed after their planes collided mid-air in Canada’s Manitoba, India’s Consulate General in Toronto said. The incident took place when two single-engine aircraft collided at a flight school. Sreehari Sukesh, who lost his life in the accident, was from Kerala.
Sukesh was a resident of Statue New Road, Thrippunithura in Kochi, according to a Kottayam-based news portal, Onmanorama.
“With profound sorrow, we mourn the tragic passing of Mr Sreehari Sukesh, a young Indian student pilot, who lost his life in a mid-air collision near Steinbach, Manitoba. We extend our deepest condolences to his family,” the Indian Consulate General said in a post on X.
“The Consulate is in contact with the bereaved family, the pilot training school and local police to provide all necessary assistance,” the Consulate General’s post added.
Speaking about the incident that occurred early on Tuesday morning, Adam Penner, president of Harv’s Air pilot training school, said the two were practising take-offs and landings in small Cessna planes, CBS News reported.
Penner said they appeared to have tried to land at the same time and collided a few hundred yards away from the small runway, CBS News reported.
He added the planes are equipped with radios, but it appears the two pilots didn’t see each other.
According to the police, both the pilots were pronounced dead at the scene.
INDIAN STUDENT PILOT’S BODY RECOVERED FROM WRECKAGE
The bodies of the two student pilots were recovered in the wreckage near Steinbach, roughly 50 kilometres Southeast of Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba province, CBC News reported.
The other victim was identified as 20-year-old Savanna May Royes, a Canadian citizen, who was Sukesh’s classmate.
The Transportation Safety Board, the agency responsible for investigating aviation incidents in Canada, is investigating the accident.
The chief of the air pilot training school said the flight school, which his parents started in the early 1970s, has students from Canada and around the world training for professional and recreational purposes, according to the CBC News report.
The school trains about 400 student pilots a year, Penner said.
Nathaniel Plett, a resident who lives close to the flight school, told CBC News that he and his wife were startled by a loud bang.
“I said to my wife, ‘That’s a plane crash,'” CBC News quoted Plett as saying.
“There was a pillar of black smoke coming up, and a little later (we) heard another bang, and there was an even bigger pop of black smoke,” he added.
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