Experts after crash:

Emergency parachute could have saved four lives

The small aircraft was completely destroyed by the impact. The four occupants died immediately.

(Bild: BSBÖ Lungau/Thomas Keidel)

Four people died in the crash of a small plane in the Lungau mountains on November 2, 2023. An investigation report that has now been published names "loss of control in flight" as the cause. Fatal: a rescue system was not activated.

Four people died on November 2, 2023, when a Cirrus small plane crashed into the wooded mountain slopes near Tamsweg. The plane was on its way from Zagreb to Salzburg - and got caught in a foehn storm with fog in Lungau. "The occupants had no chance of survival due to the high impact forces," says the 66-page report by the Federal Safety Investigation Board.

In it, the experts state the probable cause of the crash: "Loss of control in flight". Several factors led to this: On the one hand, the pilot, who was experienced in Alpine flights, was "not authorized to fly according to instrument rules". On the other hand, the limits in terms of aircraft mass and center of gravity were not observed. The bad weather was also a significant factor.

Occupants would have had a chance of survival
One point stands out in the report: A rescue system with a kind of emergency parachute was not used. "There is a high probability that the occupants would have survived the accident if the overall ballistic rescue system had been activated."