Two Pakistan Army pilots killed in training aircraft crash due to technical fault

Two Pakistan Army pilots were killed on Monday after their training aircraft crashed due to a technical fault, the army said.

The incident occurred near Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

"(At) midday, a Mushshak training aircraft of Pakistan Army Aviation crashed near Nawan Killi, Quetta, due to a technical fault,” the army said in a statement.

Both pilots, Major Husnain Shehzad Humayun, the instructor, and Captain Abdul Samad, a student, died in the “unfortunate crash,” it added.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief and sorrow over the death of the army pilots.

In June, an Mi-17 helicopter of the Pakistan Army Aviation crashed near Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, killing all personnel on board.

Aircraft crashes during training missions are not uncommon in Pakistan. Authorities rarely release details of military training crashes,and the investigation reports about the crashes are also not made public.

In 2019, 19 people died when a Pakistani military aircraft crashed into a residential area on the outskirts of the garrison city of Rawalpindi, most of them in their homes. In April 2020, a Pakistani fighter jet crashed during a routine training mission near the eastern city of Gujrat, killing both the instructor and the trainee pilot on board.

In 2022, a PAF plane crashed in the northwestern city of Peshawar while it was also on a training mission, killing the pilot and the co-pilot.