A student pilot and his instructor died on Tuesday after their plane collided with a passenger plane in mid-air near an airport in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, police said.
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The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that it is investigating the causes of an “accident” that occurred on Tuesday morning “involving a Cessna aircraft belonging to the Ninety-Nines Flying School and a Dash 8 of (the Kenyan airline Safarilink”) without to mention results.
Nairobi police chief Adamson Bungei informed AFP of the deaths of the Cessna's two passengers, the trainee pilot and his instructor.
Contacted by AFP by telephone, Ninety-Nines Flying Club, which describes itself on its website as a flying school “for the private, commercial and aviation sectors”, confirmed without further comment “an incident this morning” (Tuesday). .
Safarilink said in a statement that the 39 passengers and 5 crew members on a flight to Diani, a beach resort on the Kenyan coast, heard a loud bang from Wilson Airport “shortly after takeoff” on Tuesday morning.
“No injuries were reported” on board the plane, which immediately turned around, added the company, which flies to 18 destinations in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania.
Wilson Airport is a small airport south of Nairobi that primarily serves domestic flights, particularly to the coast and national parks. It is located about fifteen kilometers from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the largest in the country.