Eleven people, including five novice jumpers and their instructors, have died after a skydiving plane crashed in northeastern France on Sunday, with some victims’ families reportedly witnessing the horror unfold.
The deaths included five parachuting instructors, five first-time jumpers, and the pilot, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez.
Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot described it as France’s most significant aviation accident involving skydiving in three decades.
Mr Nunez added: “Some of the victims’ families witnessed the aircraft falling with their own eyes. So there is tremendous emotion and an even greater psychological trauma.”
While declining to speculate on the cause, Mr Nunez said the plane “dropped out of the sky suddenly” shortly after taking off from the Nancy-Essey airfield, crashing about 300 metres from the runway.
Yves Séguy, prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region, added that the aircraft suffered a malfunction and “fell almost vertically”, narrowly avoiding a built-up area. He added: “Had it occurred just a few dozen meters away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties.”
Mapped: Nancy-Essey airfield
Flight tracking service Flightradar24 reported that the plane banked to the left after takeoff and crashed less than a minute later near residential properties.
Police cordoned off the crumpled wreckage.
Flight tracking sites identified the plane as a single-engine Pilatus PC-6, a small transporter of freight, passengers and skydivers.
The parachutists were to have jumped as tandems, Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein told public broadcaster France Info. Tandem jumps are skydiving experiences where two people, often an instructor and a novice jumper, are attached together for the descent.
Emergency services responded immediately and were providing psychological support to victims’ relatives, officials said. The Paris prosecutor’s office is leading the crash probe, Nunez said.
A resident, identified as John Curaku by BFM-TV, told the broadcaster that he was in his yard when he heard what sounded like a plane’s engine stopping, immediately followed by a bang.
He said he went to the crash site and “there were no signs of life,” with two of the bodies thrown a few meters (yards) from the plane.