A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR and his student had a “lucky escape” after being injured when their light aircraft crashed during a training flight.

The microlight crash-landed in a field near Ballyduggan, Co Tipperary at around 11.30am yesterday after taking off from Kilkenny airfield. Pilot Vincent Vaughan, a flight instructor, suffered a broken leg while Gerard Murphy was more seriously injured, the Irish Daily Star reports (print edition).

“I heard the engine stop and the next thing I just saw it spiralling around in the sky,” eyewitness Michael O’Brien told TV3 News. “Then it just fell.”

The Pegasus Quantum microlight aircraft was examined by staff from the Air Accident Investigation Unit, then brought in for a full technical examination, the Irish Independent reports. The cause of the crash is yet to be determined.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transport told the Belfast Telegraph the two men are “very lucky” to have escaped with their injuries. “The aircraft ran into technical difficulties and came down heavily,” she said. “The two of them are very lucky that they weren’t more seriously injured.”

A microlight is a propeller-powered aircraft with a seats and an engine suspended below a fabric wing, like that on a hang glider.

Read more: Man in critical condition after light plane crashes in Tipperary >