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The pilot of the small training aircraft which crashed on Thursday in Lebanon's mountainous Keserwan district, north of the capital Beirut, was an ethnic Armenian identified as George Shirikjian, Arevelk newspaper reported, citing its sources in Beirut.

The aircraft carried three people, the pilot and two passengers, who were killed in the crash. The two passengers, who carried the same family name, were believed to be siblings.

The Cessna 172 plane belonged to flight training firm Open Sky Aviation and had taken off from Beirut airport at 1.30 p.m. local time before crashing 20 minutes later in the village of Ghosta, Reuters reported, citing Lebanon’s aviation authority.

"It was very foggy in the area ... the airplane hit rocks above a house," Ziad Maalouf, a local resident who was in the area and heard the crash, said. "After hearing the bang we ran out and we saw the remains of people."