Four people have died after a light aircraft crashed in Somerset, police said.
Two men and two women were killed when the six-seater came down near Churchinford in the Blackdown Hills south of Taunton just before 11.45am.
The aircraft was en route from Surrey to Dunkeswell Aerodrome in east Devon when it crashed, Avon and Somerset Police said.
Superintendent Richard Corrigan said: "This is a very sad incident in which four people have tragically lost their lives.
"It's too early to give any further details about the victims but we're ensuring specially-trained officers are making contact with their next of kin and giving them all the support they need.
"We've been working very closely with our colleagues from the other emergency services at the scene to make the area safe and ensure the resulting investigation can proceed.
"The Air Accidents Investigation Branch has been informed and is deploying a team of investigators.
"There are road closures in place and we'd respectfully ask people not to attend the scene."
Police said 27 fire and rescue personnel plus specialist vehicles, were sent to the scene, along with ambulances, the local air ambulance and a police helicopter.
The AAIB confirmed it is sending a team to investigate the incident.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here