Eleven people have died after a civilian aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in the town of Tomblaine in eastern France, local officials said.<\/p>\n
The pilot and all 10 passengers were killed, including five instructors and five people who were preparing to skydive for the first time.<\/p>\n
The plane, which was being used by a parachutist school, had taken off from Nancy-Essey airfield when it crashed suddenly at around 11:00 local time (10:00 BST).<\/p>\n
The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office has launched an investigation into the cause of the incident, French Interior Minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez said.<\/p>\n
Some of the victims\u2019 relatives saw the crash take place, as they had gathered at the airfield to watch the first-time tandem jumps, Nu\u00f1ez added.<\/p>\n
The mayor of the nearby city of Nancy, Mathieu Klein, said some of the victims had died \u201cin full view of their loved ones\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chaynesse Khirouni, president of the eastern department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, said those family members had suffered \u201cconsiderable psychological trauma\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nu\u00f1ez said there was \u201cvery strong emotion\u201d when he visited the crash site, as well as \u201cgreat solidarity\u201d for the families of the victims.<\/p>\n
Medical and psychological support teams had arrived to care for relatives and other witnesses, he added.<\/p>\n
The plane hit the ground near the edge of the airfield, close to a residential area and a shopping centre. Local officials say it narrowly missed the houses nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cGive or take a few metres and the accident could have caused collateral casualties,\u201d said Yves Seguy, the prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle.<\/p>\n
He told French broadcaster BFM that the plane had fallen \u201calmost vertically, in the immediate vicinity of a housing estate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Half of the skydivers who died were nurses, the president of a local nursing organisation, Thierry Pechey, told BFM.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were colleagues who had decided to go on a first skydiving jump, no doubt to unwind, as we\u2019re going through a difficult time with the heatwave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The crash is the deadliest private plane accident in French history, excluding military and commercial flights, news agency AFP reports, citing the country\u2019s BEA aviation safety agency.<\/p>\n
A witness, who declined to be identified, told Reuters he saw the plane veering off to the right as he was driving past.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething was clearly wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The man did not see the crash, due to an embankment by the side of the road, but he says he heard the sound.<\/p>\n
When he arrived at the site, he tried to help extinguish the wreckage of the plane, which had caught fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw right away that it was over, that they had all died instantly. There was no movement, and it was clear the impact had been too violent for there to be any survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomblaine Mayor Herv\u00e9 Feron said the plane had fallen from the sky \u201cin a completely unexplained manner\u201d, adding that it was \u201ctoo early to try to find explanations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWeather conditions might have played a role, or perhaps not at all, I really have no idea,\u201d he told BFM.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear if the weather was a factor in the crash, and Nu\u00f1ez has declined to speculate ahead of the official investigation.<\/p>\n
Like much of Europe, France has been gripped by a searing heatwave in recent days. An amber weather warning for high temperatures was in place for Meurthe-et-Moselle on Sunday.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eleven people have died after a civilian aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in the town of Tomblaine in eastern France, local officials said. The pilot and all 10 passengers were killed, including five instructors and five people who were preparing to skydive for the first time. The plane, which was being used by a parachutist school, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}