A small plane crashed on Friday afternoon on a highway near the eastern German city of Magdeburg. The crash killed the two people on board. German police said no other vehicles were involved in the accident.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined, while investigations continue to clarify the exact circumstances of the incident in Magdeburg and Limburgerhof, where different reports describe different details of the location and time of the accident. Two deaths have been confirmed by local authorities.
According to initial information, a small plane was in flight when the tragedy occurred. Police and emergency services are at the scene, while the highway remained closed after the accident. A police spokesperson said the plane was completely engulfed in flames during the crash.
According to current information, emergency crews pulled two dead passengers from the wreckage. Photographs from the scene showed firefighters extinguishing the remains of a red and white plane. Large parts of the aircraft were destroyed in the crash.
Its tail had come to rest on the road, while burned remains could be seen on an embankment. According to the flight-tracking portal Flightradar, the aircraft appears to have been an Aerostyle Breezer, an ultralight two-seat aeroplane. It is reported to have been registered to an aviation club in the northern town of Kropp.
It had taken off at 12:33 from the club’s airfield. Another report on the incident gives different details about the location and time of the accident. According to that report, the small plane crashed in a residential area of Limburgerhof, in south-western Germany, and killed two people.
The accident there dates to May 16, at around 11:30 local time. German public broadcaster SWR reported that the plane is suspected to have exploded in the air before crashing into the residential area. Police spokesperson Thorsten Mischler confirmed that the victims were the two people on board.
According to SWR, at least one other person was also injured in the incident. According to eyewitnesses, the plane struck a house before crashing, while its parts were scattered over a wide area around it. Multiple police forces and emergency crews went to the scene, where the area was cordoned off to facilitate the investigation.
To document the crash site, a police helicopter carried out aerial photography. German authorities have launched investigations to determine the causes of the crash. So far, no possible cause of the accident has been made known, while investigations continue.