BEIJING -- An instructor and his student died in a Navy aircraft accident on May 13 in northeast China's Liaoning Province, the Navy said Tuesday.
The Navy released the news on its microblog, saying that the two pilots were killed after failing to engage their parachutes after they had successfully avoided crashing in a densely populated area.
After discovering that the aircraft's engine was on fire shortly after taking off, the two pilots turned the aircraft away from villages, residential buildings, hospitals and a business area and dived into woods.
It was only 17 seconds between observing the fire and the crash.
There was not enough time or sufficient height for the two pilots to parachute from the aircraft, according to the Chinese Navy.
The instructor was Jiang Tao, 27, and the student was Lu Pengfei, 22. They were both from the Chinese People's Liberation ArmyNavy Flight School.
