As reported by the Styrian State Police Headquarters, the 56-year-old pilot had made an emergency call around 11:15 a.m. because of smoke in the cockpit. He started with a 67-year-old friend in Pinkafeld, Burgenland. In the course of a search operation, a helicopter sighted wreckage around 4:30 p.m. in a forest near Festenburg (Hartberg-Fürstenfeld district).
The emergency services could only determine the death of the occupants at the crash site. In cooperation with the Styrian State Criminal Police Office, an aircraft accident commission is now investigating the cause of the crash. The relatives of the dead were cared for by a crisis intervention center.
The pilot took off at around 11:00 a.m. in a friend’s plane. Because the pilot could no longer be reached after the emergency call and his position could only be roughly estimated, a large-scale search operation involving several helicopters was launched. Several helicopters were involved in this.
Source: Nachrichten
