19 injured, 1 dead in South Africa plane crash

At least 19 people were injured and one killed near Pretoria, South Africa on Tuesday after a charter plane crashed near Wonderboom airport, paramedics confirmed.

"Medics from ER24 and other services are at the scene of a plane crash at Wonderboom in Pretoria," said Russell Meiring, spokesman for the ER24 medical service. "We have 19 injured casualties ranging from minor to critical injuries at this stage."

ER24 later said on its Twitter feed that one fatality had since been reported from the scene, and that it had occured "in the cockpit."

Images from the scene of the incident showed the aircraft broken into multiple pieces as rescue workers helped passengers and crew out of the smoking wreckage. Firefighters were also on hand to put out the flames.

The photographs showed the words Martin's Air Charter on the side of the plane, and it was reportedly a vintage aircraft being used in a special test flight. The 1954-built plane was soon to be flown to the Aviodrome air museum, near the central Dutch city of Lelystad, via Egypt, Croatia and Austria. It had just been refurbished for 350,000 euros ($410,000) at Wonderboom.

Aviodrome wrote on Facebook that it was "hugely shocked," by the crash.

"We are not sure what happened at this stage," Rosella Passier,  Aviodrome's marketing manager, told French news agency AFP.

"All we know is shortly after take-off the plane experienced trouble and crashed."

A spokesman for Martin's Air also said it did not know what had prompted the incident. There were no reports of inclement weather in the area.

es/msh (AFP, dpa)