MADRID, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Two men were killed when their light aircraft crashed and caught fire at the Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds) airport to the southwest of the Spanish capital of Madrid late on Tuesday evening.
Emergency services reported the accident happened at around 21:30 local time as the two men, described as 46 years old and experienced pilots, were practicing take-offs and landings.
Their aircraft, a modern SR22 belonging to the AERIS air school, crashed into the fire station at the airport at the end of a runway.
The causes of the accident are still being investigated, but investigations will be complicated by the fact that the aircraft was constructed out of carbon fiber and totally destroyed by the resulting fire, while the bodies of the two victims were also badly burned.
A spokesperson for the Emergency Services explained that the accident happened in the civil section of the airport and that nothing could be done to save the lives of the pilots given the intensity of the flames which also provoked a dense cloud of smoke.
The fire station was occupied by one person when the plane crashed into it, but he escaped uninjured.
This is the fifth fatal accident involving a light aircraft in Spain in 2016 and the second in the Community of Madrid, with three people losing their lives after their plane suffered a birdstrike while en-route to Cuatro Vientos on March 30.
