Eleven killed after skydiving plane crashes near French aerodrome

Five students and five instructors dead along with pilot after plane fell suddenly near aerodrome, says prefect.

A skydiving plane has crashed in north-eastern France, killing all 11 people onboard, according to the region’s prefect.

The parachuting-school plane crashed near Nancy at 11am, said Yves Séguy, the prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle region.

The pilot and 10 passengers – five ‌students and five instructors – died, the prefecture reported.

The students were a group of nurses, according to a source close to the case and confirmed by the head of Meurthe-et-Moselle’s nursing council, Thierry Pechey.

“They 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,” he said.

The plane suffered a malfunction and “fell almost vertically” after taking off from Nancy-Essey airfield on the outskirts of Nancy, Séguy said. “The plane, which was transporting 11 people, fell suddenly immediately next to the aerodrome. There were no collateral victims.”

It crashed on the edge of a built-up area near the airfield, he told the broadcaster BFMTV. “Had it occurred just a few dozen metres away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties,” Séguy added.

The parachutists were to have jumped as tandems, the Nancy mayor, Mathieu Klein, told public broadcaster France Info. In tandem jumps, two people, often an instructor and a first-time skydiver, are attached together for the descent.

Klein said some of those taking part had families and friends who had come to watch and saw the plane fall from the sky.

Emergency services responded immediately and were providing psychological support to several relatives of the victims, Séguy said, adding that authorities were also collecting witness statements.

“We are deploying all available resources,” he said, including emergency medical teams, fire services, police and mental health support.

A resident, identified as John Curaku by BFM-TV, told the broadcaster that he was in his garden 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 metres from the plane.

The French interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, was on his way to the scene, his staff ‌said.