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Two dead after plane crashes in Swedish river

Two people died on Tuesday afternoon when an ultra-light aircraft crashed near an airstrip in Arvika, western Sweden, after one of its wings fell off at 75 metres altitude as the plane was about to land.

Published: 13 November 2012 17:49 CET

Two dead after plane crashes in Swedish river

“One passenger was still in the aircraft and another was found ten minutes ago some 200 metres down river from the crash site,” said Jonny Hjalmarsson of the Arvika emergency services to the Aftonbladet newspaper shortly after 2.30pm.

The two passengers were men in their sixties hailing from Värmland county, in western Sweden.

Workers at the airstrip were the first to notice that the plane was in trouble and alerted emergency services. The craft reportedly nose-dived straight into water.

“The plane has crashed straight into a stream or something similar, with quite a lot of water, where there are fairly strong currents,” said Britt Samuelsson of the Aeronautical Search and Rescue Centre (flygräddningscentralen) in Gothenburg to news agency TT.

The plane, which weighed around half a tonne and was built to carry two people, has now been dragged to land, where police have cordoned off the area.

Local police explained that the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (Statens haverikommission) will be launching an investigation into the incident.

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UPDATE: Ryanair passenger jet makes emergency landing in Berlin over 'fake bomb threat'

A Ryanair flight making an emergency landing

The flight from Dublin to Krakow made the unexpected diversion after a reported bomb threat, German newspaper Bild Zeitung said.

“We were notified by the Krakow airport that an airport employee received a phone call saying an explosive device had been planted on the plane,” said regional police spokesman, Sebastian Glen.

“German police checked and there was no device, no bomb threat at all. So we know this was a false alarm,” he told AFP on Monday.

“The perpetrator has not been detained, but we are doing everything possible to establish their identity,” Glen added, saying the person faces eight years in prison.

With 160 people on board, the flight arrived at the Berlin Brandenburg airport shortly after 8 pm Sunday, remaining on the tarmac into early Monday morning.

A Berlin police spokesperson said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The passengers will resume their journey to Poland on board a spare aeroplane,” she told AFP, without giving more precise details for the alert.

The flight was emptied with the baggage also searched and checked with sniffer dogs, German media reported.

The passengers were not able to continue their journey until early Monday morning shortly before 4:00 am. The federal police had previously classified the situation as harmless. The Brandenburg police are now investigating the case.

Police said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The Ryanair plane that made an emergency landed reported an air emergency and was therefore immediately given a landing permit at BER,” airport spokesman Jan-Peter Haack told Bild.

“The aircraft is currently in a safe position,” a spokeswoman for the police told the newspaper.

The incident comes a week after a Ryanair flight was forced to divert to Belarus, with a passenger — a dissident journalist — arrested on arrival.

And in July last year, another Ryanair plane from Dublin to Krakow was forced to make an emergency landing in London after a false bomb threat.

READ ALSO: Germany summons Belarus envoy over forced Ryanair landing

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