Four pilots are dead after two Philippine military training aircraft collided in midair near Fernando Air Base in Batangas province, south of the capital Manila, on Friday.

The two SF-260 aircraft came together in the sky and fell within the air base area. Both planes carried pilots, and all four were killed. The crash has raised fresh questions about the safety record of a training aircraft that has been involved in deadly accidents before.

Rescue teams moved within minutes

Rescue crews reached the crash site as soon as the incident was reported. They recovered the bodies of the pilots. The aircraft are used to train military pilots, and the men killed were trainees who were still learning to fly in the air force program.

The Philippine Air Force has temporarily suspended flights of the SF-260 aircraft. The military confirmed that a formal investigation is underway. An investigation team is now working to determine why the two planes collided.

The military said the pilots were still in training and that their deaths were tragic.

A pattern of fatal crashes

This is not the first time the SF-260 has been linked to fatal accidents. In May, one SF-260 crashed and two pilots died. Two years earlier, in 2023, an SF-260 TP Marchetti aircraft also went down, killing two pilots.

Taken together, the three incidents have killed eight pilots across two accidents involving the same aircraft family and one collision that claimed four more lives. Those numbers have fueled growing public concern about how often these planes end up in deadly accidents in the Philippines.

The latest crash is the first known midair collision in this sequence. Unlike the earlier single-aircraft crashes, Friday’s disaster involved two planes in the air at the same time. That detail will likely draw close attention from investigators, who must examine how two aircraft ended up on a collision path while training.

What happens next

For now, the immediate priorities are the grounding of the SF-260 fleet, the recovery of the victims, and the search for answers. The Air Force has not yet released a final cause. Officials have not said when the investigation will conclude, and the grounding remains temporary.

Families of the four pilots now face a loss that stretches across the training program itself. The Philippine military has not publicly identified the pilots in the reports available so far, and the investigation will need to answer whether training procedures, aircraft condition, or air traffic coordination played any role.

Aviation safety experts around the world follow midair collisions closely because they are rare and often difficult to prevent. When two aircraft share the same airspace during training, the margin for error can disappear in seconds. This crash puts the spotlight on that margin in the Philippines, where the military has now lost more pilots in SF-260 accidents over a short period.

The coming days will test whether the military can explain what went wrong and whether the grounding can be lifted with confidence. Until then, the crash stands as a stark reminder that even routine training flights carry deadly risk.