Small plane crashes in Flevoland lake; Rescuers working to save victims

A report of a sports plane crash in the Zwarte Meer, a lake between Flevoland and Overijssel, sent emergency services to the municipality of Kraggenburg in large numbers on Tuesday morning. The crash happened around 11:00 a.m. The fire department said less than two hours later that the aircraft was found, and they were "busy rescuing victims."

One or two people were in the plane, a spokesperson for the local security region, Veiligheidsregio Flevoland, said to ANP. The fire brigade confirmed the plane was a two-seater to Omroep Flevoland.

Dispatchers sent the police, fire department, and ambulances to the scene at 11:06 a.m. More rescuers followed shortly thereafter, including a trauma team by air ambulance sent at 11:10 a.m. The Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter and airplane to the scene, and water rescue service KNRM was also present with several boats. The incident was scaled up to Grip 1 at 11:23 a.m. The emergency procedure calls for all emergency service crews responding to the incident to coordinate under a single commanding officer.

By noon, crews had yet to find the airplane, and there was no sign of any victims. At that time, the regional fire department said on Twitter that many rescuers were still searching for anyone injured in the incident.

It was the second light aircraft crash reported in the Netherlands this month. A Dyn’Aéro MCR01 two-seater sport plane went down in the water at the Port of Rotterdam on June 5 at about the same time that a storm hit the coastal area.

Lars Haukeland, 58, and his 15-year-old son Filip were killed in that crash. The two Norwegians departed from an airport in Bergen, Norway, and stopped in northern Germany for fuel. They entered Dutch airspace at about 4:45 p.m. while headed to Paris. The discovery of debris near the port led authorities to begin investigating a possible crash at about 6:50 p.m.

The bodies of the two victims were found about two weeks later, police confirmed.