A light aircraft carrying skydivers has crashed in eastern France, killing all 11 people on board. The twin-engine Pilatus PC-12 went down near the town of Tournon-sur-Rhône in the Ardèche department at around 10:30 am local time on Sunday. The plane, operated by a local skydiving club, had just taken off from a nearby airfield when it nose-dived into a wooded area, bursting into flames.
No survivors have been found. The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has offered to send a team to support the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA). A BEA spokesperson confirmed they are in ‘early contact’ with the AAIB, though no formal request has yet been made.
The British offer reflects the fact that the aircraft was originally built in Switzerland and its engine is manufactured in the UK. The dead include French and foreign nationals. French transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said ‘the shock is immense’.
Local prosecutor Laurent de Caigny has opened a manslaughter inquiry. Witnesses described seeing the plane bank sharply before plunging vertically. One farmer, who asked not to be named, told local media: ‘I heard the engine splutter, then a bang, then silence.
’ The crash site is sealed off as investigators search for the flight data recorder. The tragedy is the deadliest in French skydiving since 2015 when nine people died in a mid-air collision. The skydiving community is reeling.
A former instructor at the club said: ‘We are a family. This is a devastation.’ The Pilatus PC-12 is a single-engine turboprop widely used for skydiving because of its reliability and size.
But it has a chequered safety record: there have been at least 40 fatal accidents worldwide involving the type since 2000. The BEA will focus on the aircraft’s maintenance history, the pilot’s training, and possible structural failure or bird strike. The UK’s offer of help is not unusual.
The AAIB has worked with French authorities before, including after the 2015 Germanwings crash in the French Alps. For now, the families of the dead wait. A support centre has been set up in a local sports hall.
‘We are holding them in our thoughts,’ said the mayor of Tournon-sur-Rhône. The investigation will take months. But for those left behind, every detail matters.
