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.