Eleven people died this Sunday when the small plane in which they were traveling to skydive crashed in , on the outskirts of the city of Nancy, in eastern France, according to authorities. The deceased are the pilot and 10 other people who were going to skydive, as announced by the prefecture (government delegation) in the department of . The aircraft belonged to an aerial activities school.
The accident occurred at 11:15 a.m. The plane left the Nancy-Essey airfield and was carrying five instructors and five people who were going to make their first parachute jump. “It crashed just after leaving the airfield,” announced the prefect, Yves Séguy, who traveled to the scene accompanied by representatives of the prosecutor’s office, the police and the Emergency Medical Service.
Apart from the people who were on the plane, “there are no collateral victims,” according to Séguy. He had previously stated on social media that he had decided to activate the department’s operations center with all operational services present to follow tasks in real time.
Incident in progress in the town of Tomblaine involving a civilian plane having taken off from the Nancy-Essey aerodrome.
Yves SÉGUY, prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle, has decided to activate the departmental operational center (COD) in the presence of all operational services in order to…
— Prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle (@Prefet54)
The Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, has also traveled to the scene of the accident and is expected to arrive in the early afternoon. The Police have asked the population not to approach the nearby area in order to leave free access to the emergency services.
According to the local media The Republican Eastthe Prosecutor’s Office has mobilized the forensic identification unit, in collaboration with the Nancy-Metz Air Transport Gendarmerie brigade, to begin the investigation into the causes of the accident.
Representatives of the prosecutor’s office, the police and the emergency medical service are present at the scene.
