A flight instructor and student pilot have been killed after a Diamond DA42 Twin Star crashed into a hangar at Adelaide's Parafield Airport on 29 April, sparking a major fire and injuring ten people on the ground.
The aircraft, registered VH-YQP, was conducting circuit training when it struck the hangar on the Kings Road precinct at around 2:10pm. The two men on board — aged 24 and 29 — died at the scene. Of the ten people injured inside the hangar, a 55-year-old man sustained life-threatening burns, with two others in serious condition.
The crash ignited a significant fire fed by aviation fuel stored in the hangar, which was also being used for maintenance, aircraft storage and as a classroom. Several other aircraft inside were destroyed. The impact knocked out the hangar's internal sprinkler system, complicating the firefighting effort.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has deployed a team of investigators from its Canberra and Brisbane offices, covering aircraft operations, maintenance and engineering, human factors and survival factors. ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell confirmed the aircraft had been conducting circuits, but said whether structured training was in progress had yet to be established.
Mitchell warned the investigation would take time given the extent of carbon-fibre fire damage to the wreckage. Parafield Airport remained closed while evidence-gathering continued. The ATSB asks anyone with video footage of the accident flight, or its immediate aftermath, to contact us via the witness form on our website: atsb.gov.au/witness at your earliest opportunity.
It is the second incident involving a student pilot at Parafield this year, following a non-fatal Cessna crash during takeoff in January.