A trainee pilot and his instructor in a Royal Malaysia Airforce plane were killed Thursday when their Pilatus PC-7 crashed shortly after takeoff, the official Bernama news agency reported.

The two-seater aircraft came down in a paddy field three minutes after taking off from the airforce college in Kepala Batas in the northwestern state of Penang, college commandant Colonel Ahmad Anuar Ahmad told Bernama.

10th crash

"The instructor, a major, was in his 30s and married while the trainee, a lieutenant, was a bachelor," he said, without giving details.

This is the 10th crash of the airforce's PC-7 trainers since 1991 and brings to nine the number of pilots killed, the New Straits Times reported in its online edition.