A small skydiving plane used by a parachuting school crashed on Sunday in the northwestern French town of Tomblaine, killing the pilot and ten parachutists.

The parachuting school plane, which had five trainee parachutists and five instructors on board, went down shortly after taking off from the Nancy-Essey airfield on the outskirts of Nancy.

The prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle, Yved Segui, told the French station BFM that the aircraft malfunctioned and “fell almost vertically” to the ground in a residential area near a shopping centre. The wreckage of the single-engine plane landed on a bike path.

“The plane, which was transporting 11 people, fell suddenly immediately next to the aerodrome. It crashed on the edge of a built-up area near the airfield.

“There were no collateral victims. Had it occurred just a few dozen metres away, the accident could have caused collateral casualties. We are deploying all available resources,” Mr Segui explained.