4 dead in plane crash in Lungau – 2 Upper Austrians among the victims

According to police, four people died when a sports plane crashed in Salzburg’s Lungau on Thursday afternoon. The Cirrus SR-20 aircraft took off from the Croatian capital Zagreb shortly before 2 p.m. The destination airport was Salzburg. At around 3:45 p.m., the machine crashed into a forest in impassable terrain on Passeggen – a mountain ridge in the municipality of St. Andrä im Lungau.

As the fire department reported, the crash was witnessed by several people. The eyewitnesses called the emergency number and started the rescue chain. The plane was found lying on its roof and had also rammed itself massively into the ground. From the outside, only two people could initially be identified in the wreckage. That’s why the first reports from the Red Cross mentioned two seriously injured people. Only after the aircraft was moved could the other two occupants be located.

Video: 4 dead in plane crash

Not yet clearly identified

According to the police, the victims have not yet been clearly identified. There was therefore no information on the identity of the dead on Friday. According to initial information, two of the inmates were members of the Schärding-Suben Aviation Union. The plane with a German registration was also stationed at the Upper Austrian airport and took off on the outbound flight to Croatia on Thursday morning.

Accordingly, a flight instructor and an entrepreneur were on board, and during a stopover in Salzburg, a Salzburger and a German citizen were also picked up for a business meeting in Zagreb. The cause of the crash itself is unknown. As the “ORF Salzburg” reports, the flying weather in Lungau at the time of the accident was considered difficult for visual flights – due to partly dense cloud cover and wind turbulence.

The rescue of the dead and the aircraft at around 1,270 meters above sea level was made difficult not only by the constant rain, the steep terrain and the soggy ground. The type of aircraft involved in the accident is equipped with an emergency parachute as standard, which is triggered using an explosive charge. However, since the rescue system had not been activated, a barrier of 150 meters had to be set up due to the risk of explosion. Two explosives experts from the Graz police then defused the emergency system, which was equipped with 800 to 1,000 grams of explosives.

The crash occurred in rough terrain in St. Andrä im Lungau:

The Salzburg State Criminal Police Office has taken over the investigation and called in an aircraft accident expert. The public prosecutor ordered the seizure of the aircraft wreckage and an autopsy of the bodies. The wreckage was recovered during the night by members of the St. Andrä, Tamsweg and Ramingstein volunteer fire departments, as well as members of the Tamsweg mountain rescue service, and transported to the premises of the Mauterndorf road maintenance department for assessment by an expert.

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