A student pilot is in critical condition after a plane crash at a Calgary airport on Saturday evening.

The 24-year-old student pilot was injured when he lost control of the plane shortly after takeoff from the Springbank Airport.

Scott Wilcox, the general manager of the Calgary Flying School where the pilot was training, said it is unclear whether strong winds played a role in the crash.

"[The winds] were certainly within tolerances which, for a flight school, the tolerances are quite conservative, and they were well within our parameters," he said.

Wilcox said investigators are still trying to piece together what caused the crash.

"What we do know for sure is control was lost, so the somewhat difficult issue now is making sure we put all the pieces together and making sure that we first, find causation, and secondly, learn from the incident so that we can train our pilots better,'' he said.

The pilot was flying a Diamond 20 aircraft, specifically designed to withstand high impact crashes.

"I'm really saddened by the event but as things are starting to evidence themselves, I'm actually very happy with the outcome," Wilcox said.

"He's all right and … the aircraft did what we intended it to do, which was help a student survive an incident."

The club bought three of the planes in 2007 for training purposes.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating the cause of the crash. That process could take up to a year.