French authorities announced that a light aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in the east of the country on Sunday, killing all 11 people on board, according to BBC.
The incident occurred in the town of Tomblaine, killing five skydiving instructors, five students, and the pilot in one of deadliest light aircraft accidents in the country’s history.
“They (the students) were colleagues who had decided to go on a first skydiving jump, no doubt to unwind, as we’re going through a difficult time with the heatwave,” the head of Meurthe-et-Moselle’s nursing council, Thierry Pechey, said.
Local authorities said that medical and psychological support teams were taking care of the victims’ relatives who were at the scene, as well as other witnesses who got terrified by the crash.
The German-registered aircraft crashed into a grassy area near the runway at Nancy-Essey Aerodrome, coming down close to a residential neighborhood and two nearby roads, an AFP journalist at the scene reported.
Notably, the cause of the crash was not immediately known. Authorities have launched a technical investigation into the incident.
Meanwhile, the police urged the public to “strictly avoid” the area surrounding the airport to ensure that emergency responders had uninterrupted access to the crash site.
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