It is now known that the pilot reported technical problems and made an emergency landing on a field.
"One person is known to have been injured, but the pilot is unharmed. The services and the CAA are working at the scene," CAA told LSM.lv.
The victim is a Lithuanian citizen who was taken to hospital.
Māris Gorodcovs, director of the CAA, told Latvian Radio that the crashed aircraft was used for parachute drops in Limbaži. For technical reasons, it was heading to a reserve airfield in Riga.
The pilot, who is a Latvian citizen, made the emergency landing due to bad weather conditions. Due to poor visibility, the airfield was not visible, so the pilot landed in a field in the Imanta district.
The pilot has no injuries and is currently giving evidence and explanations, Gorodcovs said.
According to the conversation between Riga Airport air traffic controllers and the pilot, the aircraft ran out of fuel and the pilot informed the dispatchers about the need to make an emergency landing:
Dispatch (D): '"YL-YEA", I understand that you have no visibility. The runway is at 11 o'clock."
Pilot (P): "Roger!"
D: ""YL-YEA", you are currently deviated to the east of the runway by half a mile."
P: "Roger!"
P: "We need an emergency landing. We're out of fuel!"
D: ""YL-YEA", roger! You're out of fuel. I advise you to fly heading 180."
D: ""YL-YEA", confirm that where you are is your landing site."
The pilot did not reply to this call from the controller.
The CAA director said that the pilot's decision to immediately contact the airport controller and ask for help was correct: "The search operation started already when the aircraft disappeared from the radar. The response was as quick as possible."
Rescue services and the Riga Airport Fire Brigade are working at the scene. Due to the fact that the airport firefighters are at the scene of the accident, the airport runway was temporarily closed but flights are now resumed.
The airport urges passengers whose flights were delayed to contact their airlines.
The crashed Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4 Turbo Porter is registered in Latvia and belongs to Skydive Latvia in Limbaži, according to publicly available information.
