KANPUR – A routine training flight ended in tragedy in India’s Kanpur as twin-engine Tecnam jet crashed into field, killing both the instructor pilot and the trainee on board.
Indian Police identified the victims as Sachin Bhatia, an instructor pilot from Gujarat, and Abhishek Pujari, a trainee pilot from Karnataka.
Both pilots killed as training aircraft crashes in Kanpur
Kanpur plane crash: The aircraft belongs to Garg aviation that operates a flying school from the civil aerodrome. pic.twitter.com/N8ClsqniJB— Shakeel Yasar Ullah (@yasarullah) August 27, 2026
Two pilots took off from the local Garg Aviation Training Centre at around 11:30 a.m. The aircraft was reportedly returning to the training centre when it went down in a field at approximately 11:50 a.m., just 20 minutes after takeoff.
The crash claimed the life of Bhatia, who had accumulated around 3,000 hours of flying experience, along with trainee pilot Pujari. Emergency and police teams rushed to the crash site after the incident. Authorities cordoned off the area and recovered the bodies of both pilots.
The aircraft was a four-seat, twin-engine Tecnam that had been brought to the Garg Aviation Training Centre in 2023 specifically for pilot training.
The sudden crash has raised questions about what went wrong during the short training flight. However, authorities have not yet established the cause of the accident.
The incident has been reported to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which will conduct a detailed technical investigation into the aircraft and determine the circumstances that led to the fatal crash.
India witnessed several major aviation incidents in recent years involving commercial, military and training aircraft. In June 2025, Air India Flight AI171 crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, killing 260 people.
Earlier this year, IAF Mirage 2000 and Jaguar fighter jets were involved in separate crashes, while a PC-7 trainer and Tejas fighter also crashed in November. In June, a Cessna 152 training aircraft crash-landed in Kasganj after a reported technical problem, injuring the trainee pilot. In August, an Air India A320 experienced a hydraulic-related emergency but landed safely, with two dozen people injured.
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