Four dead in Southend Airport plane crash

ODN

Four people killed when a medical transport plane crashed at London Southend Airport have been confirmed as foreign nationals, Essex Police Chief Superintendent Morgan Cronin said. An Air Accidents Investigation Branch Lead Investigator Lisa Fitzsimons said it has started an investigation into what happened but “It's too early to speculate on what may have caused this tragic accident.”   Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00Firstly thank you for your patience as we continue to work with what is an

00:04extremely sensitive and complex investigation. Yesterday afternoon an

00:09aircraft which had landed here earlier in the day took off bound for the

00:13Netherlands. Shortly after takeoff it got into difficulty and crashed within

00:18the airport boundary. Sadly we can now confirm that all four people on board

00:23died. We are working to officially confirm their identities. At this stage

00:29we believe all four are foreign nationals. Our thoughts are with the families and

00:34their colleagues at this tragic time. I can promise that those who have passed

00:39away will be treated with the utmost care and dignity. Our detectives and forensic

00:45teams are working in parallel with air accident investigators, the Royal Air

00:49Force, Essex Fire and Rescue Service and London South End Airport to build an

00:54accurate picture of what happened. To aid our investigation the

00:59Civil Aviation Authority has put in place a significant air exclusion zone

01:04surrounding the crash site. We're also speaking with dozens of witnesses some of

01:09whom have already provided video footage and we'd like to thank them for their

01:13help. I know there will be a lot of questions about what happened here

01:17yesterday. We are doing all we can to establish the facts and get those answers.

01:23We have launched a safety investigation which will establish the circumstances and

01:29causes of this tragic accident. Our investigation is in parallel to the

01:35investigation by Essex Police. If there are safety lessons that can be learned we

01:42will make recommendations that aim to prevent a similar accident occurring. Now that the

01:49emergency services have secured the site we will be able to begin gathering the

01:54evidence we need to understand the circumstances that led to this accident.

02:00The aircraft involved in the accident was a Beechcraft B200 Super King Air. As part of

02:08our investigation we are liaising with other state investigation authorities.

02:14At this stage it is too early to speculate on what may have caused this tragic accident.

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