A pilot and his passenger were killed after a plane crashed in a remote field in North Yorkshire.
The two men died as the light aircraft crash landed in a field off Mains Lane, in the Ryedale area between Castle Howard and the A64, at around 10.40am on Saturday.
Air crash investigators have been sent to the scene, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.
Superintendent Mark Grange, of North Yorkshire Police, said the plane landed more than 200m away from the nearest houses and was still mostly intact.
“It looks like it came straight down,” he said.
“It looks like an aircraft, with two wings and a tail fin where it should be. It’s in a bad way and it’s obviously come down heavily. It’s sat on its underside so it has not flipped.
“Whether they tried to land like that I don’t know.
“I cannot say where they were going and what they were doing in the air.
“The fire service attended the scene just to make sure the area is safe because of worries about the amount of fuel – they have declared it safe.”
He added that paramedics declared the two men dead at the scene and gave no more details about them.
“We are still out trying to locate family to inform them of what’s happened,” Mr Grange said.
Roads in the area were closed and members of the public were advised to keep away from the area as police cordoned it off to preserve the scene for the AAIB.
Up to 20 firefighters attended the scene and set up a foam blanket around the aircraft in case it caught fire, a North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said.
The spokesman added: “We sent three appliances and one incident support unit with its own appliance.”
An air ambulance and a land ambulance were also sent to the crash site, a Yorkshire Ambulance Service spokeswoman said.
