Two members of the Philippine Air Force died in a crash on Wednesday while rescuers searched for another plane that went missing on Tuesday with six people on board, authorities said.
During the exercise, the military aircraft, a SIAI Marchetti SF-260, struck a rice field in Pilar, near Manila (north), killing its pilot and another airman, Romell Velasco, chief of staff, Bataan provincial police told AFP .
“It’s a real wreck. The wings came off,” he said after arriving at the scene of the accident.
“No one could survive this,” he said, adding that the bodies of the victims had been recovered.
An investigation into the origin of the “incident” is underway, Air Force spokesman Consuelo Castillo told reporters.
In June 2021, the Philippine military temporarily grounded its fleet of Black Hawk helicopters after an S-70i crashed during an overnight training flight, killing all six people on board.
Separately, Philippine civil aviation authorities reported that a Cessna plane carrying five passengers and its pilot never made it to a remote airstrip in the north of the country on Tuesday.
The missing plane took off from Cauayan Airport (north), said Eric Apolonio, spokesman for the sector’s regulator.
The search for the device was temporarily halted on Wednesday due to poor weather conditions, he added.