Eleven people were killed and one person seriously injured after a plane from a parachute club crashed in southern Poland, with local media suggesting the light aircraft may have been carrying too many passengers.
“Twelve people were on board the plane and the only survivor was taken to hospital and is in a serious condition,” Justyna Sochacka, a spokeswoman for the emergency services, told AFP.The light twin-engine aircraft, a Piper Navajo, took off from an airfield in Rudniki near Czestochowa with 11 parachutists and a pilot on board, according to reports.The causes of the crash was not immediately known, but the Polish media suggested the plane’s engine may have failed due to there being too many passengers on board.
Eyewitnesses said its engines began making an odd, droning sound before the aircraft began to fall from the sky.“It was flying from the south and the engine was making strange sounds,” said eyewitness Barbara Minczykiewicz, a resident of the village of Topolow where the plane crashed, quoted by Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza broadsheet daily.“It was flying very low, close to houses. It tilted to one side on its wing and caught fire,” she said.