Another Indian student pilot killed

A 20-year-old man killed in a light plane crash in Sydney’s west yesterday is the second Indian national in a month to die in Australia while learning to fly.
The aviation student, whose name has not been released, crashed a Liberty XL2 single-engine aircraft into farmland at Luddenham just before 4.30pm.
He had moved to Sydney from Mumbai in January this year to undertake pilot training at the Sydney Flight Training Centre in Bankstown, Green Valley police said.
Last month student Akash Ananth, 24, also from India, was killed on his first solo flight over Melbourne on August 27. Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators were expected to examine the Luddenham crash site today.
Superintendent Dave Stinson from Green Valley police said the pilot had taken off from Bankstown Airport just after 2.30pm yesterday.
It was not known when he had been due to return, Superintendent Stinson said. Nearby residents told detectives they did not see the plane but heard its engine revving and then heard an object hitting the trees and crashing to the ground, he said.
The plane, owned by the flight school, crashed in a paddock near the intersection of Willowdene Avenue and Vicar Park Lane, near the busy Great North Road but away from built-up areas.
Emergency services arrived shortly after 4.30pm and a doctor from NRMA CareFlight confirmed the man had died. The pilot’s family in Mumbai have been notified, Superintendent Stinson said.
Liberty’s Australian distributor could not be contacted for comment last night. A spokesman for Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said the flight school owned nine of the 10 Liberty XDL2 aircraft registered in Australia.
25/09/08 Georgina Robinson/Sydney Morning Herald, Australia