Small plane crashes in the Pyrenees, four dead
The light aircraft in which an instructor from the Saint-Girons aeroclub and three of his students were travelling crashed. Investigation opened
An instructor and three students from the French Ecole Nationale d'Aviation Civil (Enac), aged between 18 and 25, died Sunday in the Ariège, in the Pyrenees, in the crash of a light aircraft. This was announced this morning by the Minister of Transport Philippe Tabarot. The public prosecutor's office has been informed, and an investigation will establish the circumstances of the accident.
After ground and air searches, the aircraft, a single-engine plane typically used by aeroclubs, was found last night at an altitude of 1,200 metres in the Pyrenees, together with the bodies of the four occupants, three men and a woman, according to sources close to the investigation.
The aeroclub of Saint-Girons (Ariège) contacted the Air Rescue Coordination Centre (Arcc) in Lyon, which sent two helicopters, one from the gendarmerie and the other from the civil protection, to carry out aerial searches. For its part, the prefecture sent fire brigades and gendarmes for the ground search. At the scene, the Alpine rescuers could only confirm the death of four people.
