Cause determined

Small plane crashes onto highway: three dead

Three passengers were killed when a sports plane crashed onto a highway near Paris on Sunday. The cause of the accident has now been determined.

The plane struck a high-voltage power line shortly after take-off from Lognes-Emerainville airfield on Sunday afternoon and then crashed into the central reservation of the Paris-Metz highway 4 near Collégien, according to the public prosecutor's office in Meaux.

No vehicles on the freeway were involved in the accident, which occurred around ten kilometers from Disneyland Paris. The highway was closed.

All three occupants dead
The fatalities were two men and one woman. According to the public prosecutor's office, the pilot had held a pilot's license since last year and had flown just over 100 hours. The aviation police and France's Air Accident Investigation Bureau began an investigation.

Photos showed the small Cessna 172 aircraft lying upside down between the concrete lane dividers in the middle of the highway. Burning pieces of wreckage had been thrown onto the carriageway and a rescue helicopter landed at the scene of the accident. Fire and rescue services were deployed on the highway.