Alexandre Marchi / EPA
Security teams and emergency services work at the plane crash site in Tomblaine, near Nancy.
The aircraft crashed shortly after take-off, near Nancy-Essey airfield, without hitting people on the ground. Five students, five instructors and the pilot died.
Eleven people died this Sunday in the crash of a civil plane used by a parachuting school, near the Nancy-Essey airfield, in Tomblaine, in eastern France. The victims are the pilot and ten passengers (five students and five instructors) who participated in a parachute jump.
The accident occurred at around 11 am, shortly after takeoff, close to the runway of the airfield located on the outskirts of Nancy, in the department of Meurthe-et-Moselle.
Second Yves Séguy, representative of the French State in the region of Meurthe-et-Moselle, the aircraft “fell almost vertically” in the immediate vicinity of the aerodrome, in a grassy area close to an urbanized area.
There were no casualties among people on the ground. Séguy stressed, in statements to BFMTV, that the disaster could have caused more victims if the plane had fallen “a few tens of meters” next to. The aircraft crashed near a residential area and a shopping center.
A The cause of the accident has not yet been clarified. According to , the device was registered in Germany and authorities opened a technical investigation. Emergency teams were mobilized to the scene, while the police asked the population to avoid the area around the airport.
Meanwhile, the French Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñezand the Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarotmoved to the location. Tabarot called the accident a “terrible tragedy”.
According to , which quotes the president of a local delegation of the Order of Independent Nurses, half of the paratroopers they were nurses. Local authorities further indicated that family members of the victims were present at the airfield when the plane crashed.
