RCMP are assuring residents of Steinbach and area that they're doing what they can following a fatal plane crash in the community.
"It is tragic for a small community like Steinbach, but we're doing our best to get to the bottom of this. There's no safety concerns for anybody in Steinbach at this time. This is an unfortunate incident and we're doing our best," says Cpl. Melanie Roussel with the Manitoba RCMP's media relations team.
She says the collision happened Tuesday morning, south of Steinbach west of highway 12, and claimed the lives of two pilots.
Currently, she says no information is known about the pilots, and notes RCMP are still working to identify them.
An investigation of this nature can be quite lengthy, Roussel says, adding the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada is looking into the cause of the collision.
An update from the board is expected to be shared with RCMP sometime in the future, she says, and then with the public.
The TSB confirms investigators were deployed to the area, but could not share any further information given how early they are in the investigation.
It says since 1990—the year the TSB was founded—there has only been one other mid-air collision in Manitoba, which occurred in 2009.
Not including this most recent tragedy, it adds "there have been 45 mid-air collisions in Canada reported to the TSB since 1990. Mid-air collisions of two aircraft are rare: they account for only 0.4 per cent of all air accidents reported in Canadian airspace."