Nine people were killed when their plane crashed during a skydiving trip near Umea, a small university city in northern Sweden, authorities said on Sunday.
The small plane designed to carry parachutists crashed on an island on the Ume river shortly after takeoff, police spokesman Peder Jonsson said, adding the cause for the accident was unknown. He said those on board were on a skydiving trip.
The region’s main University Hospital of Umea confirmed there were no survivors and relatives of the deceased had been notified.
Neither Jonsson nor the hospital immediately identified the victims’ names or nationalities.
“I heard a weird sound, which didn’t sound normal. I looked up and saw a plane spinning like a top,” witness Peter Larsson told the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
“At first, I thought it was an acrobatic flight, but we quickly realised that something was wrong,” he said.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf expressed his condolences in a statement published on Facebook.
He said: “In view of today’s tragic air crash outside Umea, which took nine people’s lives, I want to convey my condolences.”
