France plane crash: One person killed and six injured after jet crashes into home for disabled

One of the injured was in a serious condition in hospital

The crash caused considerable damage to the DAPEI centre (Departmental Association of Relatives and Friends of Intellectually Disabled Persons) (Getty Images)

A 63-year-old was killed after a military jet on a training flight crashed into a home for disabled people in France.

Six others were also injured in the accident in Vouvray near Tours at about 5.30pm local time on Wednesday, government officials told Reuters.

Colonel Cyril Duvivier, commander of the air base where the Alphajet plane had taken off, told the AFP news agency that the pilot and student pilot had managed to parachute to safety before the crash.

He added they had tried to make for “a dark area that appeared to be uninhabited”.

AFP said one of the injured was in a serious condition in hospital.

Health Minister Marisol Touraine said that the person who died had lived at the home “for several years”.

A witness, identified only as Sebastian, told the Nouvelle Republique newspaper that he had gone out to put out the bins when there had been “a very loud noise” and “a large fireball”. He said he also saw the two pilots parachuting to the ground.

Debris from the Alphajet plane is littered across the crash scene (Getty) (Getty Images)