Paris, Aug 16, (dpa/GNA) – Three people died when a single-engine plane, crashed on Tuesday in western France, near Nantes, the civil aviation authority BEA announced.
According to media reports, the plane disappeared from radar some time after take-off on Tuesday afternoon, and crashed close to the Loire river, near the Atlantic coast.
Initially, only one of the victims could be recovered from the wreckage.
The plane was piloted by the well-known French television journalist Gérard Leclerc, as reported by several French media outlets and confirmed by his last employer CNews. He was an experienced pilot.
France’s former president François Hollande, praised Leclerc as a great political journalist.
The newspaper Le Parisien reported that the daughter of former French Senate president René Monory, was also on the plane.
GNA