Training plane crash-lands in Aurora province

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said a training plane crash-landed in Aurora province early Tuesday afternoon.

Radio reports quoted the engineer Elson Egargue of the provincial disaster risk reduction and management office saying that the pilot has radioed that he and his student were safe but suffered bruises and minor bone injuries.

Caap spokesperson Eric Apolonio, quoting the agency’s Operation Rescue and Coordinating Center (ORCC), said the Cessna 152 type aircraft crash-landed in the Sierra Madre mountains somewhere in Maria Aurora at around 12:30 p.m.

Apolonio said the aircraft with an instructor and a student pilot on board were on a cross-country flight that departed the Lingayen airstrip in Pangasinan at 10:02 a.m.

ORCC immediately alerted the Caap aircraft accident investigation team, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, and the Philippine Army and the Philippine Air Force rescue operations teams, he said.

Apolonio said that at around 2 p.m. elements of the Philippine Army 84^th Infantry Battalion were dispatched to Maria Aurora while Philippine Air Force search and rescue group sent a Super Huey II aircraft that departed Clark Air Base at 3:15 pm for Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija in preparation for the rescue mission.