©Waldemar Brandt via Unsplash
A glider crashed on the German freeway A45 towards Frankfurt on Saturday afternoon.
There were two people in the glider. One of the two occupants did not survive the crash on the German highway between the Olpe and Freudenberg junctions. It is said to be the pilot. The other person sustained serious injuries and was transferred by trauma helicopter to hospital in a critical condition.
German broadcaster WDR reported that the plane crashed shortly after taking off from the glider airfield near the village of Hünsborn.
The glider landed in the middle of the roadway towards Frankfurt. Traffic was blocked off in both directions.
The A45 towards Frankfurt is a busy German motorway and an important north-south connection for traffic from the Ruhr region and North Rhine-Westphalia to the Frankfurt region, the Ruhr and Rhine area and onward to Zurich and Austria.
For now, it's unclear exactly what went wrong aboard the glider. A glider flies without an engine and stays in the air through a combination of aerodynamics and natural rising air.
©Waldemar Brandt via Unsplash - illustration image of a glider