5 die, 8 injured in Poland as small plane crashes into hangar amid bad weather

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WARSAW: Five people were killed and eight others injured on Monday when a Cessna 208 plane crashed into a hangar at a sky diving centre during bad weather, authorities said.

The plane’s pilot and four people sheltering in the hangar from stormy weather died in the afternoon crash in Chrcynno in central Poland, firefighters spokesperson Monika Nowakowska-Brynda said.

An additional eight people were injured, two of them seriously, police said. A child was among the injured, the provincial governor, Sylwester Dabrowski, said.

Chrcynno is about 45 kilometres northwest of Warsaw.

Firefighters and airborne ambulances took the injured to hospitals in the Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki area.

Rescuers were still checking the hangar for additional victims, said Katarzyna Urbanowska, another spokesperson for local firefighters. Prosecutors and police were investigating the cause of the accident.

It was the worst accident related to sky diving in Poland since 2014, when 11 people were killed in a crash of a small plane in Topolow, near the southern city of Czestochowa.