A nightmare aviation tragedy occurred in Manitoba, Canada, early in the morning of Tuesday, July 8. Two small planes collided violently in the air, killing two young student pilots on board.
At 8:45 a.m., a loud bang was heard in the rural area of Hanover, southeast of Winnipeg. Local resident Nathaniel Plett was drinking coffee leisurely at home with his wife when he suddenly heard a deafening explosion. “I immediately said to my wife, ‘That’s a plane crash!'” Platt recalled. He looked out the window and saw a column of black smoke rising into the sky, followed by a louder bang and even thicker black smoke in the sky.
RCMP, firefighters and emergency personnel rushed to the scene and found the shattered wreckage of two small single-engine planes south of Steinbach. This tragic scene made everyone present feel heavy.
Adam Penner, director of Harv’s Air, was in his office at the time and only realized what was happening after hearing the commotion outside. “We really don’t understand how they could get so close, and we can only wait for the results of the investigation,” he said, his voice full of sorrow.
The two student pilots who died were practicing take-off and landing, which should have been a routine training in their flying careers. The planes that collided were a four-seat Cessna 172 and a two-seat Cessna 152, and both were flying alone.
What’s even more heartbreaking is that the two pilots had completely different experiences. One had just started training for a few months and was still fresh in his mind about flying; the other was about to get his commercial pilot’s license and was just one step away from his aviation dream.
“We are like a big family, and this blow is too heavy,” Penner said with tears in his eyes. This flight school, founded by his parents in the early 1970s, trains about 400 students from all over the world every year, and has never encountered such a tragic accident.
Flight instructor Mohamed Shahin found it even harder to accept the reality: “It was really shocking this morning. We are deeply saddened for the lost students and their parents.” In addition to this accident in Canada, an even more horrific incident occurred on the same day on the other side of the world, in Italy.