Two people were killed on Friday afternoon when a small plane crashed onto the A2 motorway northeast of Magdeburg in Germany's state of Saxony-Anhalt and burst into flames immediately after impact, police said.

Source: MDR via Sports Chosun

The Magdeburg Police Inspectorate said the aircraft struck the Hannover-bound carriageway between the town of Burg and the Parkplatz Kraehenberge rest area at approximately 2:48 p.m. local time on Friday, November 6.

Source: Magdeburg Police Inspectorate via Rus Tourism News

Firefighters, police and emergency medical personnel were sent to the scene, where rescue workers recovered the bodies of the two occupants from the wreckage. Both were declared dead at the scene, and police had not publicly released their identities in their initial announcement.

Police said that, based on the information available so far, the aircraft did not collide with any vehicles travelling on the highway, including cars on the carriageway at the time.

Local media, including the broadcaster MDR, reported that the aircraft belonged to Aero Club Kropp, an air sports club in the Schleswig-Flensburg region of Schleswig-Holstein. Flight-tracking and club reports identified it as a two-seat Breezer ultralight, registration D-ESDA, that had departed from Schleswig earlier in the day; those identification details are media reports and have not been separately confirmed by investigators.

The crash forced authorities to close the A2 in the direction of Hannover between the affected junctions for hours while emergency crews worked at the scene. The A2 is one of Germany's major east-west transport routes.

The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. Police said an investigation into the exact circumstances is under way, and no confirmed explanation involving mechanical failure, weather or pilot error has been released.