Eleven people have died after a civilian aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in the town of Tomblaine in eastern France, local authorities said.

The pilot and 10 passengers died in the incident, including five students and five instructors, according to local officials.

The plane, which was being used by a parachutist school, had taken off from Nancy-Essey airfield when it crashed, local media reported.

Police have urged the public to avoid the area around the airport in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department.

French transport minister Philippe Tabarot said he and interior minister Laurent Nunez were travelling to the scene of the crash, which he called a “terrible tragedy”.

Yves Seguy, the prefect of the eastern department of Meurthe-et-Moselle, said that no bystanders were injured in the incident, according to the AFP news agency .

The crash took place in a built up area near a shopping centre, AFP reports.

“The plane fell almost vertically, in the immediate vicinity of a housing estate, on the edge of the airfield,” Seguy told French broadcaster BFM, adding it was lucky there were no additional victims.

Half of the skydivers who died were nurses, Thierry Pechey, president of the Meurthe-et-Moselle branch of the Order of Independent Nurses, told BFM.

Local officials also said relatives of the victims were present at the airfield when the crash happened. They were reportedly there to watch the dive, which was a first skydiving experience for the five students.

A witness to the crash, who declined to be identified, told Reuters he saw the plane veering off to the right as he was driving past.

“Something was clearly wrong,” he said.

The man did not see the crash, due to an embankment by the side of the road, but he says he heard the sound.

When he arrived at the site, he tried to help extinguish the wreckage of the plane, which had caught fire.

“We saw right away that it was over, that they had all died instantly. There was no movement, and it was clear the impact had been too violent for there to be any survivors.”

A team of specialists was on its way to investigate the cause of the incident, Meurthe-et-Moselle department president Chaynesse Khirouni told local media.