Plane hits hangar in Poland; pilot and 4 others die and 8 hurt

The tail of a Cessna 208 plane sticks out of a hangar after it crashed there in bad weather killing several people and injuring others, at a sky-diving center in Chrcynno, central Poland, on Monday, July 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Five people were killed and eight others were injured Monday when a Cessna 208 plane crashed into a hangar at a sky diving center during bad weather, authorities said.

The plane’s pilot and four people sheltering in the hangar from stormy weather died in the afternoon crash in Chrcynno in central Poland, firefighters spokesperson Monika Nowakowska-Brynda said.

An additional eight people were injured, two of them seriously, police said. A child was among the injured, the provincial governor, Sylwester Dabrowski, said.

Chrcynno is about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northwest of Warsaw.

Firefighters and airborne ambulances took the injured to hospitals in the Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki area.

Rescuers were still checking the hangar for additional victims, said Katarzyna Urbanowska, another spokesperson for local firefighters.

Prosecutors and police were investigating the cause of the accident.

It was the worst accident related to sky diving in Poland since 2014, when 11 people were killed in a crash of a small plane in Topolow, near the southern city of Czestochowa.