Today (1st) at the Air Force 3rd Training Wing in Sacheon, Gyeongsangnam-do, two training planes collided in mid-air and crashed.
According to the Air Force, a KT-1 trainer, which took off for air flight training at about 1:32 pm today, and a KT-1 trainer, which took off following an instrument flight, collided in the air about 6 km south of the airport at 1:37 pm. year went down.
The accident occurred five minutes after the two trainers took off in succession.
Instrument flight is a flight method that relies only on installed instruments, such as the position of the aircraft, unlike visual flight, in which the pilot directly grasps the terrain features with the naked eye.
The Air Force said, "Emergency evacuation was made on two KT-1 trainers, but three pilots were killed and one is missing."
According to the fire department, there are private houses near the accident site, but no confirmed damage has been reported.
The fire department dispatched two helicopters, 14 vehicles, and 35 personnel to the scene.
The Air Force announced that it plans to establish a flight accident countermeasures headquarters with the Deputy Chief of Staff as the head of the department to check the exact situation of damage and investigate the cause of the accident.
KT-1 is the first domestic basic trainer designed and developed with domestic technology, and has been put into practice since August 2000.
It is a two-seater (two-seater) trainer used by fighter pilot candidates to master basic piloting skills.
KT-1 also crashed during flight training in November 2003, killing one pilot at the time.
At that time, the Air Force announced that the accident had occurred due to the pilot's faulty operation of the engine electronic control unit switch as a result of an investigation into the cause of the accident.
(Photo = provided by Park Hwang-bae, Yonhap News)