Training aircraft crashes in Lebanon, three feared dead

A small training aircraft with three people on board crashed on Thursday in Lebanon's mountainous Keserwan district, north of the capital Beirut, the country's aviation authority said.

Initial reports suggested the pilot and two passengers were killed, aviation sources said.

The Cessna 172 plane belonged to flight training firm Open Sky Aviation and had taken off from Beirut airport at 1.30 p.m. local time before crashing 20 minutes later in the village of Ghosta, the aviation authority said in a statement.

Open Sky could not immediately be reached for comment.