Nine die in fireball as skydive plane crashes

NINE people including a British man were killed yesterday after a skydiving plane crashed in a ball of flames in New Zealand.

Witnesses said the light aircraft crashed and burst into flames as it took off from Fox Glacier Airport on South Island at 1.15pm local time.

Police said the dead included the pilot, four local skydiving instructors and four tourists - a Briton, an Irishman, a German and an Australian.

"It was like a fireball and then there was big puffs of smoke going up... The plane was engulfed in flames immediately," one local resident said. "No-one could have survived that."

The aircraft was almost completely destroyed.

The Irishman was named locally as Patrick Byrne, 26, from Gorey, County Wexford. .

Police said the aircraft was a Fletcher fixed-wing, popular for skydiving and tours.

Fox Glacier is in New Zealand's Southern Alps, about 90 miles from Christchurch.

The fatal crash was the third in the region in 17 years. In 1994 seven people were killed in a helicopter crash near the glacier. In 1993 nine people died in a plane crash at nearby Franz Josef glacier.