A French military aircraft on a training mission crashed into a home for people with learning difficulties near Tours in western France on Wednesday, killing one resident and injuring at least five others.
The pilot and copilot of the Alphajet ejected from the plane before it crashed and were picked up uninjured, according to French air force officials.
The dual-control plane had taken off from Air Base 705, a training centre for elite fighter pilots near the city in west central France, and was being flown by an experienced instructor and a trainee who had planned a night training mission. While flying over Tours to the south of the base, the plane reportedly suffered a technical failure. Anxious to avoid the city, the crew was said to have turned the aircraft around and sought a less built-up place to ditch the plane at around 5.30pm.
French media reported that the pilots had bailed out of the plane believing it would crash into a field.
An official inquiry into the accident has been opened by the French air investigation authority (BEA).
About 75 people were at the Bellangerie Medical Home situated in the middle of fields near Vouvray, when the aircraft smashed into two buildings, one of them reportedly the women’s wing. The home was reportedly preparing for the funeral of a resident, who had recently died, planned for Thursday.
The 63-year-old victim, said to have been a long-term resident, was not named.
A nurse, whose name was given only as Martine, told journalists: “It’s the sort of thing that only happens in films.”
The last accident at the air force base happened 31 years ago, French military officials said, and the last Alphajet crash in France was in 1988.
“It’s a very safe plane that’s been around for about 30 years. It’s one of a generation of planes that is simple and has stood the test of time,” Colonel Cyril Duvivier, the airbase commander, told French journalists.
The French health minister, Marisol Touraine, travelled to the scene on Wednesday eveninglast night and Ségolène Neuville, the secretary of state for the handicapped, insisted on “absolute transparency” in the inquiry into the circumstances of the accident.
