A skydiving plane crashed Sunday in northeastern France, killing 11 people, including five parachuting instructors, according to authorities.

The plane, identified as a single-engine Pilatus PC-6 by flight tracking, took off from the Nancy-Essey Airfield before crashing around 300 yards from the runway, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, according to the Associated Press (AP). Meurthe-et-Moselle area prefect Yves Séguy reportedly said the plane suffered an apparent malfunction and fell “almost vertically,” CNN reported. The crash occurred at 11:00 a.m. local time.

Besides the five parachuting instructors, five novice jumpers and the plane’s pilot also died, Nunez said. “Some of the victims’ families witnessed the aircraft falling with their own eyes. So there is tremendous emotion and an even greater psychological trauma,” he continued.

Officials said emergency personnel responded to the crash and offered psychological assistance to the victims’ families, according to the AP. Authorities said cops and 50 firefighters were dispatched, CNN reported. Nancy Mayor Mathieu Klein told France Info the jumpers were meant to go skydiving in tandem. This would have meant one novice and one instructor attached to each other, the AP reported. (RELATED: France Faces Hottest Day On Record And 40 People Drowned Amid Heatwave)

“It’s tragic, but it could have been even worse,” Klein told France24, noting the plane had crashed in a residential area.

A witness who asked not to be identified alleged that he had seen the plane climbing at approximately 11:00 a.m. local time when the engine noise ended as if it had cut off, according to Reuters. The witness said he did not see any visible indication of an issue prior to the incident.

France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) said it opened a safety investigation into the crash and dispatched personnel to the scene, according to a translated June 28 statement shared on X.

It is unknown if extreme heat was a factor in the crash, with Nancy’s highest temperature on record having reportedly taken place the day before, Reuters reported. Temperatures in sections of Europe were expected to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Farenheit) on June 28, with France reporting 1,000 excess deaths amid the summer heatwave, the outlet previously reported.