2 Student Pilots Crash Into Each Other in Midair

Two student pilots died on Tuesday morning when their single-engine planes crashed in midair south of Steinbach, in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Adam Penner, president of Harv's Air pilot training school, said the two were practicing takeoffs and landings in small Cessna planes, the AP reports. He said they appeared to have tried to land at the same time and collided a few hundred yards away from the small runway. He said the planes are equipped with radios, but it appears the two pilots didn't see each other. Police said the pilots were pronounced dead at the scene and that there were no passengers.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police could not confirm the identities of the victims during an afternoon news conference. Penner said the flight school, which his parents started in the early 1970s, has students from Canada and around the world training for professional and recreational purposes. The school trains about 400 student pilots a year. He said both students involved in the crash were hoping to become airline pilots, the CBC reports. He said one pilot nearly had a commercial license while the other was only a couple of months into training. "We don't understand how they could get so close together. We'll have to wait for the investigation," he said