Two killed in tourist plane crash at Toulouse airport

TOULOUSE, France - A tourist plane from Germany crashed late Friday at the Toulouse-Blagnac airport in southwest France, killing two people and seriously injuring two others, officials said.

The pilot, a 49-year-old Austrian business executive, died in the crash, as did one of his children who was sitting beside him in the plane, said the substitute prosecutor of Toulouse, Olivier Kern.

His French wife and another of their children were both in hospital with serious injuries but their lives were not in danger, he added.

The Austrian-registered Piper-Cheyenne aircraft crashed before reaching a runway at the airport.

Air traffic at the airport was halted for two hours while the emergency services cleared away the wreckage of the plane, but resumed around midnight.


by Andrew Winner
(c) 2011 AFP