A charter aircraft with two pilots on board, one of them female, crashed in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district on Saturday afternoon. The incident happened in Bhakku Tola village in the Kirnapur hills area, the police said. The flight instructor as well as the woman trainee pilot were killed in the incident.
The aircraft belonged to the IGRAU (Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi) and was on a training sortie, and prima facie bad weather caused the crash, said an official from Gondia in neighbouring Maharashtra.
The wreckage of the aircraft was traced on the hills, IGRAU Administrative Officer Satya Kumar told PTI, adding villagers were first to reach the spot.
The charred body of a man was found in the mountains of Lanji and Kirnapur areas, about 40 km from the Balaghat district headquarters, Superintendent of Police Sameer Saurabh told PTI. Later, they found the second body.
"We received information at around 3:45 pm (about the crash). As the area falls under the Naxalite-infested belt, security forces were summoned. Other personnel reached the spot after the area was cordoned off. We have recovered the bodies of the flight instructor and the woman pilot which are badly burnt. The spot comes under the Lanji police station", Saurabh added.
The trainer aircraft had taken off around 3 pm from the Birsi airport in the Gondia district of Maharashtra bordering Balaghat.
The deceased were identified as Mohit Thakur, aged about 25, and Vrikshanka Maheshwari, around 20.
(With PTI inputs)
