Four dead, one missing in French air collision

Four people were killed and one was missing after a tourist plane and a microlight aircraft collided in western France on Saturday.

The small microlight carrying two people collided with a DA40 tourist plane with three people onboard around 4:30pm (1430 GMT) in Loches in the Indre-et-Loire department.

Four bodies were recovered from the microlight and the larger plane. The larger plane had crashed into a tree in an area that was difficult to reach.

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An eyewitness said she had heard a "big crash" while outside in her courtyard with her husband. The pair saw a man fall tens of metres (yards) from the larger plane into a field as the aircraft skimmed nearby rooftops.

A 75-year-old was piloting the plane with two passengers aged 28 and 30, while a 66-year-old was at the controls of the microlight with a passenger aged 50. None of the people involved in the crash were related.

Around 50 firefighters were called out following the crash, while 30 police officers set up road detours around the two crash sites. The causes of the collision remain unclear.

Some suggest that the blinding late afternoon sunlight could have dazzled one of the pilots.

Collisions between microlights and other aircraft are rare, although an August 2019 crash between a microlight and a helicopter over the Spanish island of Mallorca killed seven including two minors.