KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - The trainee pilot who was killed in an air crash near the Beringin Golf Club in Rawang was keeping his training a secret from his mother.

Mohamed Ehsan Saiyed Abu Tahir may have wanted to present his private pilot license (PPL) to his mother as a surprise.

Neighbours of the 22-year-old said he would only tell his mother, and anyone else who asked, that he was going to a club, but he never mentioned that it was the Royal Selangor Flying Club (RSFC) where he was taking his PPL course.

Ehsan, a graduate of business studies at the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology in Bukit Jalil, had started taking flying lessons at the RSFC, based at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Sungai Besi, since early this year.

Relatives and neighbours described him as a "good and quiet boy" who respected everyone and helped out at his family-owned Syarikat Mariam Mini Market in Taman Nirwana, Ampang.

A RSFC source said Ehsan was on one of his final solo training flights in an Eagle 150B light aircraft en route from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur when he crashed in Lembah Beringin during bad weather.

His body was buried at the Jalan Kuari Muslim cemetery in Cheras yesterday. His mother, Noorwan Begum Mohammed Saliff, 46, was inconsolable during the funeral.