A captain and a trainee pilot were killed on Monday after a trainer aircraft crashed in Dhenkanal shortly after it took off.

Dhenkanal, June 8:

A woman trainee pilot and her instructor were killed after a two-seater aircraft crashed in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district on Monday.

As per initial reports, the accident took place at Government Aviation Training Institute (GATI) at Birasala. The trainer aircraft crashed soo after it took off on Monday morning.

“Captain Sanjib Kumar Jha from Bihar and Anis Fatima, a trainee pilot from Tamil Nadu, lost their lives after a trainer aircraft crashed today at Birasal Airstrip,” news agency ANI tweeted.

The two were taken to a nearby hospital in Kamakhyanagar, where doctors declared them dead, Additional District Magistrate (ADM), Dhenkanal, B K Nayak, said.

The bodies of the instructor and the trainee pilot have been sent for postmortem.

While the exact cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained, sources say the mishap could have taken place due to a technical snag or inclement weather.