Rule 1 is anything in general, local news about aviation is 9 times out of 10 flat wrong, inaccurate, and misleading.

Rule 2 is journalism nowadays is a joke and words are used to invoke emotion and clickbait, not actual facts.

"Training to get his pilot's license" is in itself an extremely general statement and misleading to what the actual situation was. More than likely whoever the "trainee" was, he was already a commercially certified pilot, most likely instrument rated, and on a training flight with the company per their program.