A student pilot is listed in serious condition at the Saint John Regional Hospital after a small single-engine plane he was flying skidded off a runway on Nov. 10 and slammed into an embankment.

The Chinese student came to Canada to learn to fly at the Moncton Flight College at Fredericton International Airport.

In the crash he broke bones in his forehead and suffered cuts to his face. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition but has since been upgraded to serious.

It was the student's first solo flight, said Mike Doiron, the college principal.

The crash shut down the airport's two runways until the plane was removed, said Andrew Leeming, director of operations.

The airport will be conducting an investigation into its emergency response services because of the incident, Leeming said.

The flight school will also be conducting its own internal investigation of the crash, which will examine the mechanical functions of the plane as well as how prepared the student was before the flight, Doiron said.

"We're going to be looking at weather conditions, the aircraft's engine, the student's training profile."

The student is the first to suffer serious injuries from a crash since the school opened in the 1980s, said Doiron.