Aircraft Crashes Into Supermarket In Portugal; 5 Dead

A plane exploded in mid-air and crashed into a supermarket car park in Portugal. The aircraft's four passengers are feared dead. plus another casualty on the ground.

The plane came down near the Lidl Supermarket in Tires near the coastal town of Cascais 20 miles west of Lisbon.

The plane also smashed into a truck which killed the driver.

At least one house in the area where the crash happened reportedly caught fire. The crash site is also just 150 meters from a local school. Nearly 80 firefighters responded to the crash scene, together with other emergency workers. Even Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has arrived at the scene.

The aircraft is said to be a Swiss-registered plane, a Piper PA-31TR Cheyenne II, which has left Geneva three days ago before making a stop in Marseille, a southern French port city, and continuing on to Tires. The plane reportedly belonged to a Swiss company that makes orthopedic prostheses and was on its way to Marseille.

The aircraft took off from Tires aerodrome, and about two thousand meters after takeoff.

A witness who was then staying in a pizzeria just 200 meters from the scene of the accident said she heard such a " big bang" around midday. Filipa Ribeiro, daughter of the owner of the pizzeria said that one of their customers even saw the plane crash.

The light aircraft reportedly landed on a lorry which happened to be unloading in the supermarket car park at the time. Several vehicles are believed to have caught fire as well due to the crash.

Videos taken by bystanders showed huge plumes of black smoke rising into the air from the scene of the crash.

All four passengers of the light aircraft are feared dead including the pilot and the three passengers. All four victims are reportedly Swiss. Three other people on the ground when the plane crashed have suffered minor injuries.

A witness saw the owner of the house which caught fire following the crash running out of her burning property with her baby in her arms. Another lady who was inside the Lidl supermarket at the time of the crash said everything started shaking like an earthquake and that people started screaming and running in all directions.

A Twitter user posted seeing the plane going down, and thinks that it more or less fell on the supermarket. Another said that the plane crashed near his house and smelled like "intense burning".

Horrified locals were seen surveying the fatal crash site. A truck was photographed while burning, as well as a collapsed roof hit by the crashing plane. It was a like a nightmare scene for emergency responders.

source: http://thesun.uk/61838djWd