Two pilots were killed on Thursday morning after a private training aircraft crashed near the Ganga barrage in Natthupurwa village in the Katri area of Kanpur, police said. The victims were identified as instructor Sachin Bhatia from Gujarat and trainee pilot Abhishek Pujari from Karnataka. Both died at the crash site. The aircraft was operated by Garg Aviation, which runs a flight training school from Kanpur’s civil aerodrome. According to Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal, the aircraft took off from the training centre at around 11.30 am and crashed roughly 20 minutes later while it was returning to the aerodrome.

The circumstances surrounding the crash have not yet been established. The aircraft involved was a twin-engine Tecnam that had been brought to the flight training centre in 2023 for pilot training. Such aircraft are used by flying schools for instructional flights, including training exercises designed to provide trainee pilots with practical experience under the supervision of qualified instructors. Police said Bhatia, the instructor pilot, had approximately 3,000 hours of flying experience.

Despite his experience, the aircraft went down near the Ganga barrage, killing both occupants. Emergency and police teams reached the area following the crash and began proceedings at the site. The cause of the crash remains unknown at this stage. Officials have not indicated whether the aircraft experienced a technical problem, adverse conditions or another issue before going down. Investigators will examine the aircraft, flight records and other available evidence to establish what happened during the short flight.

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The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been informed about the accident and is expected to conduct a technical investigation.  The inquiry will seek to determine the sequence of events leading to the crash and whether any mechanical, operational or other factors contributed to the incident. The deaths of Bhatia and Pujari have raised fresh concerns about aviation safety during flight training operations.

While training flights are conducted under regulatory requirements and supervision, accidents involving instructional aircraft can result in fatalities and require detailed investigation. Authorities are expected to release further information as the probe progresses. For now, officials have confirmed the identities of the two pilots and the broad circumstances of the crash, but the exact reason why the Tecnam aircraft came down remains undetermined. The DGCA investigation is expected to provide more clarity on the cause of the accident and the events preceding the crash.

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