Four die in Portugal crash
Four people died when a light aircraft crashed in Portugal, UK diplomatic sources said today.
The group included a British man, believed to part of a group of Rotary Club members on a tour of Europe, along with two Australians and one American.
The accident happened when their plane crashed shortly after take-off from the seaside resort of Cascais, nine miles west of the capital Lisbon, yesterday morning.
Rescue workers found the wreckage last night in the Sintra mountains north west of the capital, the Portuguese Lusa news agency said.
A source at the British Embassy in Lisbon said one Briton was among four people killed in the crash.
The UK Foreign Office said it was trying to confirm the reports.
A spokesman said: "We have heard the reports but we have got no confirmation of them at this stage."
The plane was en route from Cascais to Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, when it came down in bad weather, Lusa said.
It was one of 22 light aircraft transporting Rotary Club members around Europe.
The pilot contacted air traffic control 20 minutes after the aircraft took off, saying bad weather had forced him to turn back to Cascais, according to Lusa.
No further contact was made between the pilot and air traffic controllers, the agency said.
Cascais, on the Estoril Coast of Portugal, is a former fishing village popular with British tourists.
It is famous for the Boca do Inferno, or Mouth of Hell, where the sea roars into the coastline. Cascais is a few miles from the resort town of Estoril, noted for its casino, Grand Prix racetrack and golf course.
There are more than 59,000 Rotary Club members in the UK and Ireland in 1,816 clubs.
Members undertake voluntary projects to help improve their local communities and have the right to attend any one of the clubs in 163 countries worldwide.
