A training aircraft crashed in Kanpur on Thursday killing both the instructor Sachin Bhatia and the trainee pilot Abhishek Pujari, officials said. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has launched an investigation into the accident.
A team of three officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) departed for the site for necessary regulatory oversight and coordination, the civil aviation regulator said in a statement, adding, “The AAIB has been informed and will undertake a detailed investigation into the accident in accordance with the applicable rules.”
As per preliminary information shared by the regulator, a Tecnam P2006T twin-engine aircraft, bearing registration VT-NBV and operated by Garg Aviation Ltd., Kanpur, met with an accident on Thursday afternoon when it was around five nautical miles from Kanpur Civil Airport, near Ganga Barrage.
Local officials said that the aircraft was returning to the airport when the accident took place. They also pointed to the poor weather conditions in the area around the time.
“The aircraft was on a training flight in the local flying area of Kanpur Civil Airport. There were two persons on board, a trainee pilot and an instructor. Both sustained fatal injuries in the accident,” a statement from the DGCA read.
{{/usCountry}}“The aircraft was on a training flight in the local flying area of Kanpur Civil Airport. There were two persons on board, a trainee pilot and an instructor. Both sustained fatal injuries in the accident,” a statement from the DGCA read.
{{/usCountry}}“The circumstances and cause of the accident will be determined through the investigation,” the DGCA stated.
Garg Aviation was involved in an incident in June where the DGCA not only de-rostered its instructor but also grounded the aircraft after a trainee pilot was injured at Kanpur during a night instructional flight.
In Thursday’s incident, the aircraft came down with a loud bang, sending panic through Natthupurwa as villagers rushed towards the fields.
The crash wrecked the four-seater aircraft and its debris were scattered at the site. Police reached the spot soon afterwards, cordoned off the area and began the recovery operation.
“The deceased have been identified as the instructor, Captain Sachin Bhatia, a resident of Gujarat, and trainee pilot Abhishek Pujari of Karnataka,” Raghubir Lal, Kanpur commissioner of police, said, adding that Captain Bhatia was an experienced instructor with 3000 hours of flying behind him.
Lal said the aircraft took off at around 11.30 am and crashed in fields of Sarvesh Kumar around 20 minutes later while returning. The twin-engine aircraft had been brought for training in 2023 by the flight training school Garg Aviation, which operates from the civil aerodrome.
“The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been informed and will conduct a technical investigation into the crash,” he said.
Garg Aviation chairman Vijay Garg said instructor Captain Bhatia was highly experienced and an examiner-level instructor. He said the training aircraft was considered one of the safest, as it was equipped with twin engines.
“We are all shocked and dismayed by how this happened and how the aircraft crashed,” he said, adding that a DGCA team had reached the site and begun an inquiry.
Referring to the June incident, Garg said the trainee had opened the aircraft doors before the engine had shut down. She could have suffered serious injuries had the instructor not pulled her back, he said.
On June 26, a Delhi woman undergoing pilot training with Garg Aviation was struck by the propeller after landing an aircraft and attempting to disembark.
The flying club has been operating in Kanpur for nearly 31 years.