One person has died and another has been seriously injured after a light aircraft crashed near the village of Jämijärvi in the Satakunta region of western Finland on Saturday morning.
According to police, the crash involved a two-seater ultralight aircraft.
A spokesperson for the Southwest Finland Police Department said the pilot, believed to be a middle-aged Finnish man, died in the accident while his passenger was taken to hospital to be treated for serious injuries.
"It is not yet certain how long the plane had been in the air, but not for long," Chief Inspector Jutta Karrento told Yle, adding that the aircraft came down very close to Jämijärvi Airfield, from where it had taken off.
Emergency services were alerted to the incident just after 10am, with one eyewitness telling Yle that a large number of rescue service vehicles were seen driving in the direction of Jämijärvi airport shortly afterwards.
"The incident looks very serious. The fuselage of the aircraft is visible about 50 meters from the runway. It has apparently strayed off course during landing or started to crash during takeoff," local resident Ile Jokinen told Yle.
Jämijärvi is located about 75 kilometres northwest of Tampere.
Yle reported earlier that the flight tracking service Flightradar shows a Cessna U206F Stationair 6 aircraft disappearing from radar in the accident area at around that time. The aircraft had taken off from Tampere at 9.21am on Saturday morning. Based on current information, this aircraft was not involved in the incident.
Edit note: Article updated at 14:00 on 19.7.2025 with new information that the crash involved an ultralight aircraft.
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