Eight skydivers and a pilot are dead after their plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Sweden.

“It’s a very severe accident,” Swedish police said on their website on Thursday.

“Several people have died.”

Police said the plane, a DHC-2 Turbo Beaver, was carrying eight skydivers and one pilot.

It crashed close to the runway at Orebro airport in southern Sweden on Thursday (local time) and caught fire on impact.

The Joint Rescue Co-Ordination Centre told TT news agency it was carrying skydivers.

In a similar accident, nine people died in northern Sweden in 2019 when a plane carrying skydivers crashed shortly after takeoff.

The crash investigation showed the plane had been improperly loaded.