A view shows the wreckage of a training aircraft at the site of its crash in Ghosta (Credit: LBCI via Reuters)
BEIRUT — Three people died when a small training plane crashed in the Kesrouan town of Ghosta on Thursday, a security source told L’Orient Today.
A military source told AFP that those killed were the pilot and a man and woman with the same family name.
The single-engine plane, owned and operated by flight training firm Open Sky Aviation, crashed at 1:50 p.m. having taken off from Beirut airport 20 minutes earlier, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation said in a statement.
The crash occurred after the aircraft deviated from its planned route, which had been approved by the directorate’s air navigation department, the statement added.
Caretaker Transport Minister Michel Najjar has formed an expert committee to investigate the causes of the incident, ordering it to deliver results “as soon as possible.”
Local news sites published images of the wreckage of the small white aircraft lying between trees in the hills above the coastal town of Jounieh.
Ghosta Mayor Ziad Youssef Chalfoun told L’Orient Today that the plane grazed the top of a residential building as it came down, but that no one on the ground was injured.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation, which falls under the Transport Ministry, said that Open Sky Aviation had applied to Beirut airport for permission for two people to enter the aircraft hangar for a touristic trip on board one of its Cessna 172 planes.
Open Sky Aviation did not respond to multiple attempts to contact the company for comment.