Light plane crashes in rural Australia, four killed

Sydney (Reuters) – A light plane crashed in a rural area of Australia’s New South Wales state on Friday, killing the male pilot and three children who were on board, police said late on Friday.

The Cirrus SR22 took off from Canberra and crashed about 3 p.m. local time (0400 GMT) near the town of Queanbeyan which is roughly 290 kilometres (180 miles) from Sydney.

Emergency services responded to reports that a plane had crashed and was in flames, with firefighters extinguishing the blaze but there were no survivors, police said.

(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)