A trainee pilot and an instructor were killed on Thursday after a training aircraft crashed near the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur, a senior police official said.
The Tecnam aircraft, operated by Garg Aviation, took off around 11:30 am and crashed about 20 minutes later near Nathapurwa village in the Katri area, Kanpur Police Commissioner Raghubir Lal told news agency PTI.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
Instructor Sachin Bhatia, from Gujarat, and trainee pilot Abhishek Pujari, from Karnataka, died in the crash, Lal said. Bhatia had around 3,000 hours of flying experience.
Police and fire personnel rushed to the site, cordoned off the area and secured the wreckage for investigation.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will examine the aircraft's airworthiness, maintenance records and other technical aspects, police said.
Preliminary information suggests the aircraft was twin-engined. Videos from the crash site showed the plane reduced to wreckage, with debris scattered across the area.
A seat was also seen outside the wreckage, although officials have not confirmed whether the pilots attempted to escape the aircraft.
Garg Aviation claimed the aircraft, which had been with the company since 2023, had no maintenance-related deficiencies.
Commissioner Lal, along with Additional Commissioners of Police Vipin Tada and Sankalp Sharma and Chief Fire Officer Deepak Sharma, visited the crash site following the incident.