FAISALABAD: A flight instructor and a trainee pilot were killed when their trainer aircraft crashed near the Faisalabad airport on Friday.

The deceased were identified as Ahmed Hussain, the flight instructor, and Muaz Bin Asad, the trainee pilot.

The aircraft, Cessna 162 Skycatcher, was owned by the Shaheen Flying Club. It took off from the airport at 12.30pm but developed a fault within a few minutes and crashed.

The general manager of the flying club, retired Brig Luqman, told Dawn that Mr Muaz was a trained instructor with an experience of more than 8,000 hours of flying.

Before its final flight, the aircraft had no fault and the cause of the crash was not clear, he said. The plane was manufactured perhaps in 2014, he added.

The Civil Aviation Authority has launched an investigation into the accident. Its spokesman said the authority had dispatched fire fighters to the crash site immediately after the incident.

The bodies of the deceased were shifted to the mortuary of the Allied Hospital.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017