A small propeller aircraft crashed during the Luftsportverein Weinheim summer festival on Sunday, killing two men and seriously injuring a woman and a three-year-old child. The accident occurred while the aircraft was on final approach to the airfield near the Hesse-Baden-Württemberg border, turning the public aviation event into a major emergency response scene.
The dead were identified as a 67-year-old presumed pilot and a 76-year-old passenger. The injured woman, aged 40, and the child were taken to hospital with severe injuries. Rescue teams, including helicopters from DRF Luftrettung and ADAC, were deployed to the crash site in Viernheim, where the aircraft came down in a grass area near bushes with heavy damage to its nose section.
The festival was stopped immediately after the crash. Aerobatic displays and flight activities had formed part of the programme at the Weinheim airfield, operated by Luftsportverein Weinheim-Bergstraße 1932. German accident investigators and criminal police have opened a formal inquiry, while the cause remains unknown.