The two pilots on an AT-3 Air Force Academy training aircraft that lost contact with air traffic controllers have been found dead in the cabin of the aircraft. The aircraft went down in the mountainous areas of central Taiwan.
The defense ministry confirmed on Saturday that the bodies of the pilots were found at about 12:50pm after the military personnel on an army helicopter spotted debris from the crash.
According to the Air Force, the aircraft, which had been in service for about 27 years, took off from a base in the southern city of Kaohsiung on Tuesday. It lost contact with air traffic controllers 30 minutes later.
The two pilots, Wang Ching-chun and Huang Chun-jung, did not issue any abnormal calls and nothing seemed wrong with the plane before it lost contact. There were also no abnormalities in the aircraft’s flight record over the past three months.
The cause of the plane crash is pending further investigation.