A skydiving trip in eastern France turned into a nightmare Sunday when a civilian plane operated by a parachuting school crashed, killing everyone on board.
The aircraft went down in the town of Tomblaine, leaving 11 people dead, according to local authorities.
Officials said the plane was carrying 10 passengers, including five skydiving students and five instructors, along with the pilot. All 11 were killed in the crash.
The tragedy has shaken the region and is being described as one of the deadliest small-aircraft accidents in French history.
A president of a regional nurses’ organization in France told BFMTV that the victims were “half nurses and half instructors.” The official also described the outing as a “hazing ritual,” adding another heartbreaking layer to the deadly trip.
The crash also came dangerously close to becoming an even larger disaster.
Authorities said the plane went down just meters from a sprawling shopping center and a densely populated urban area. Had it crashed slightly farther in another direction, people on the ground could have also been killed or injured.
“Give or take a few meters and the accident could have caused collateral casualties,” Yves Seguy, an official in the Meurthe-et-Moselle region, said, according to Sky News.
Throughout Sunday, medical workers, politicians and grieving relatives gathered at the crash site as emergency crews responded and investigators began looking into what caused the aircraft to go down.
Officials have not yet released the full identities of the victims or confirmed the cause of the crash.
What was supposed to be a skydiving outing ended in unimaginable tragedy, killing five students, five instructors and a pilot while narrowly missing a shopping center and nearby urban area.
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