Wreckage of plane recovered from Austria’s Lake Attersee five days after crash

A training aircraft that crashed into Austria’s Lake Attersee has been brought to the surface after five days underwater. The wreck lay about 160 metres deep, making the recovery difficult.

An Upper Austria police spokesman told dpa that the formal identification of the dead would be completed after the wreck was recovered. Investigators currently believe the victims were a 24-year-old flight instructor and his 19-year-old student.

The pair had taken off from Salzburg in a single-engine propeller aircraft. Early recovery attempts using an underwater robot failed because cameras could not produce clear images in the lake’s murky water, ORF reported.

Two divers from a specialist company were eventually sent down, according to a fire service spokesman. They managed to attach cables to the wreck, allowing the two-seater to be lifted from the lake.

Photographs showed an aircraft with a completely destroyed fuselage and crumpled wings. Authorities have not commented on the possible cause of the accident. An eyewitness told ORF that the plane appeared to lose altitude in a spiral, struck the water and immediately sank.