Two planes collide in mid-air in Kenya

A student pilot and his instructor were killed Tuesday when their plane collided with a passenger plane mid-air near an airport in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, police said.

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The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said on Tuesday morning that it was investigating the cause of the “accident” involving a Cessna aircraft belonging to the (company) Ninety Nine Flying School and a Dash 8 (owned by the company Kenyan airline) Safarilink”, without specifying any conclusions.

Nairobi police chief Adamson Bunge told AFP of the deaths of the Cessna's two passengers, a trainee pilot and his instructor.

Contacted by AFP by phone, the Ninety-Nines Flying Club, which bills itself as a flight school for the “private, commercial and aviation sectors”, confirmed an incident “this morning” (Tuesday). .

Safarilink explained in a statement that a flight bound for the coastal resort of Diani on the Kenyan coast, with 39 passengers and five crew members, heard “loud thunder shortly after takeoff” from Wilson Airport on Tuesday morning.

The airline, which serves 18 destinations in Kenya and neighboring Tanzania, says there were “no casualties” on the flight, which immediately returned.

Wilson Airport is a small airport south of Nairobi that serves mainly domestic flights, particularly to the coast and national parks. It is located about fifteen kilometers from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the largest in the country.