TOMBLAINE, France (AP) — Families watched in shock as a skydiving plane carrying their loved ones on what was meant to be a thrilling introduction to parachuting crashed in northeastern France on Sunday, killing all 11 people on board, authorities said.
The dead included five parachuting instructors, five novice jumpers and the pilot, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said. Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said it was France’s biggest aviation accident involving skydiving in about 30 years.
“Some of the victims’ families witnessed the aircraft falling with their own eyes. So there is tremendous emotion and an even greater psychological trauma,” Nunez said.
He refused to speculate on what caused the crash but said the plane dropped out of the sky suddenly. He said it had just taken off from the Nancy-Essey airfield on the outskirts of the city of Nancy when it came down about 300 meters (yards) from the runway.
Yves Séguy, prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region, said the plane suffered a malfunction and “fell almost vertically,” narrowly missing a built-up area.
“Had it occurred just a few dozen meters away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties,” he said.
The plane banked to the left after takeoff and crashed less than a minute later near houses, according to the flight tracking service Flightradar24.
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.
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Leicester reported from Paris and Hatton from Lisbon, Portugal.
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