An Austrian private plane with four people on board, leaving Spain for Germany, but no longer responding to air traffic controllers, crashed at sea off the coast of Latvia on Sunday, authorities in this country announced.
French, German, Danish and Swedish fighter jets were rushed to try to make contact with the crew of the ghost plane which continued its flight over northern Europe.
The Latvian Aviation Agency confirmed in a statement “that a small plane crashed into the Baltic Sea northwest of Ventspils”.
“According to the flight manifest, the plane, a Cessna 551, was carrying 4 passengers” and “was on a flight from Spain to Cologne (Germany), but when it changed course during the flight, air dispatchers could no longer contact him,” the agency said. The plane had taken off from Jerez in Spain.
“Currently, rescue teams with boats and helicopters from Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden are working at the scene of the accident,” the agency said.
Ventspils airport, the closest to the accident site, “never had any information that the Cessna tried to reach Ventspils”, according to an airport employee contacted by AFP, who s is given on condition of anonymity.
A first alert concerning the plane had been given by Spain, which reported “probable difficulties in pressurizing the device” to the French air force, the latter explained in a press release.
The aircraft was escorted by French and then German air police during its passage through Belgian, Luxembourg and then German airspace.
Danish and Swedish fighter planes were subsequently rushed to try to make contact with the crew.
According to both the French and Swedish air forces, their pilots did not see anyone in the cockpit and attempts to make radio contact were unsuccessful.
The plane had a relatively constant path until it approached the Latvian coast, when it rapidly lost altitude.
The aircraft fell around 8 p.m. (6 p.m. GMT) “when it ran out of fuel,” Swedish rescue chief Lars Antonsson told AFP.
The nationalities of the four people on board were not disclosed.
“We have no explanation, we can only speculate,” said Antonsson. “But on board, they were clearly unable” to react.
According to the Latvian Aviation Agency, the investigation will most likely be conducted “within Latvian jurisdiction”.