More details are now known regarding a plane crash in southern Saskatchewan late last week that left two people dead.

Two pilots, Manoj Sivakumar and Srisaran Thirugnanasambantham, were killed when their Cessna 172 crashed Friday evening near Kisbey, Sask.

The Consulate General of India in Vancouver and the flight school that rented the airplane confirmed the pair’s identities.

On Friday, Sept. 18 at 5:41 p.m., members of the RCMP detachment in Carlyle, Sask. received a report of a missing plane. The aircraft was flying from Regina, Sask. to Steinbach, Man.

According to RCMP, the Department of National Defence — which was searching for the plane — notified the detachment the crash site was found in a rural area near Kisbey, located around 160 kilometres southeast of Regina.

Local officers used an ATV to travel to the remote site. According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), a fire broke out following the crash.

That same evening, Chenoa Mcarthur who lives outside Kisbey, said she witnessed what she called a “military aircraft” flying over the area while driving on a road along Grid 605.

“Looking with my binoculars I could see that they were the search and rescue personnel,” Mcarthur told CTV News. “Two of them jumped out of the back of the plane and their chutes opened up. They had orange parachutes.”

From her view she could also see smoke blowing from up in the hills. When driving towards the scene, Mcarthur witnessed police cruisers and RCMP members arrive shortly after.

“What I noticed, what just kind of made my heart [sink] was just the absence of an ambulance. There was no ambulance, which suggested to me that it was a recovery operation and not a rescue operation,” she said.

Photos provided by Mcarthur seemingly show a CC-130H Hercules from the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) overflying the area.

In a statement to CTV News Monday morning, the TSB confirmed its investigators have since concluded their work at the crash scene and will now turn to interviews and analysis of evidence to assess the crash.

“Once sufficient information has been gathered, the occurrence will be classified based on factors such as its complexity and potential to yield transportation safety lessons,” the statement read.

“The classification will determine the scope of the investigation, the type of report or product, and the target timeline.”

The agency said it expects to have a preliminary summary of the crash later this week.

In a statement issued Monday, Harv’s Air, a Manitoba-based flying school and air taxi service, confirmed both Sivakumar and Thirugnanasambantham held private pilot licences and had rented the plane to gain experience towards their commercial pilot licences.

Adam Penner, president of Harv’s Air, said in the statement that both pilots killed in the crash had close ties to their fellow students and instructors.

Friday’s crash marks the second fatal incident involving aircraft from Harv’s Air inside of two years.

In July 2025, two pilots were killed after a midair collision downed two planes during a landing attempt near Steinbach, in the Rural Municipality of Hanover.