A small tourist plane crashed and burst into flames in a field in eastern Germany early Sunday morning, killing all four people on board, emergency officials said. The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
The accident happened just after 6:15 am local time on Sunday when the Piper PA-28 aircraft took off from Steinrücken Airport, located just south of Coburg in the state of Bavaria. The small aircraft was carrying four people on an aerial tour of Coburg and the surrounding areas.
The single-engine plane went down in a field about 1,600 ft (500 m) from the end of the runway at Coburg Steinrücken Airport. The aircraft struck several trees before hitting the ground, after which the wreckage burst into flames. Footage from the scene showed some parts of the wreckage remained stuck in the trees.
“They had no chance of survival,” a Bavarian police spokesperson said, adding that the local fire department extinguished the fire at the scene. Authorities did not immediately release the names of the victims but said they were two women aged 31 and two men aged 28 and 44.
The German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU) will investigate the cause of the accident.
