A Vietnamese trainee pilot died after his fighter jet crashed into a rice field in south-central Vietnam on Friday, an official said.
The Ministry of Defence said on state-run television that the pilot was the only one on board when the plane crashed.
The chief administrator of the provincial people's committee said the L39 fighter jet belonged to the air force pilot training college situated near the crash site in coastal Phu Yen province.
"During its training session, the fighter jet crashed into the rice field, killing the trainee pilot on board," Ho Thi Nguyen Thao told AFP.
Although Vietnam's civilian aviation sector has a strong safety record, but recently there has been an increase in the number of military aircraft accidents. This is the third deadly military plane accident since June.
In last June, a fighter jet carrying two pilots crashed off the coast of northern Nghe An province. There were two pilots on board but only one was rescued. A military search plane was deployed to search for the missing pilot. But later it was found that the search plane lost contact and crashed with all nine people on board. There were no survivors.
