One confirmed dead in Slovenia plane crash

The pilot of a small four-seat aircraft has been confirmed dead more than 24 hours after he crashed into a lodge on the Velika Planina plateau in north Slovenia on 11 March.

The man, a Swedish national, was en route from Zagreb to Switzerland with his Piper Mooney Ovation M20R, according to Flightradar data, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

In north Slovenia he encountered bad weather and crashed into Velika Planina, a plateau in northern Slovenia, where he hit a wooden mountain hut at an elevation of 1,500 metres above sea level. Air traffic control lost contact with him shortly after 8am.

Rescuers needed quite some time to reach the crash site because of damaged roads, poor visibility, and because the transponder, which broadcasts the location of the aircraft in the event of crash landing, was destroyed during the crash, according to Irfan Beganović, the head of the criminal investigators at the Ljubljana Police Department.

They found the remains of the aircraft in the mountain hut within several hours but needed almost a day to get to the cockpit, which was lodged in the basement of the badly damaged hut, making it difficult for rescuers to recover the body.

A total of 67 firefighters and 32 mountain rescuers participated in the mission.