A STUDENT pilot lost her life in a mid-air collision involving the plane she was flying as it attempted to land alongside another aircraft.

Residents reported hearing loud “bangs” and witnessing large columns of heavy black smoke after the tragic accident in Manitoba, Canada, on Tuesday.

Savanna May Royes, 20, was piloting one of the aircraft when it crashed into the other.

She and another student collided when both planes were coming into land at a local flying school.

Savanna was about to receive her pilots license, a family friend posted on Facebook. 

Both pilots were pronounced dead at the scene.

There were no one else on board the two planes – a four-seater Cessna 172, and a Cessna 152 aircraft, which has two seats.

Officials at the flying school do not know how the collision happened.

“We don’t understand how they could get so close together,” Adam Penner, its president, told CBC News.

Nathaniel Plett, who lives near the school, was having a coffee when he heard noises coming from the site.

“I said to my wife ‘That’s a plane crash,” he told CBC.

Plett then recalled seeing plumes of black smoke and he heard loud bangs.

Meanwhile, Lucille Plett, revealed she heard the engine cut out just moments before the crash.

Initially, she didn’t suspect it was anything out of the ordinary.