Woman Killed on Ride-On Mower After Getting Hit by Plane

A woman has been killed after being hit by a plane while cutting grass.

The 27-year-old woman was driving a ride-on lawnmower near a runway at the Saint-Esprit airfield in Quebec, Canada, on Monday when the accident occurred.

"What we can understand is that the woman was on a tractor mowing the lawn and when the plane did its descent to land on the airstrip the airplane hit the woman," Quebec municipal police spokesman Marc Tessier told CNN.

The unidentified woman, who worked for a company that maintains the grounds of the airport, was rushed to hospital, but later died of her injuries.

The pilot, who was also the owner of the single-engine Nanchang CJ-6 plane, was not injured. However he was also taken to hospital and treated for shock.

Pictures from the scene show the grounded aircraft — a Chinese-built training plane — with severe damage to its right wing.

The small airstrip, about 37 miles north of Montreal, is mainly used by private aircraft, while a skydiving company also operates out of it.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is now investigating the incident; it said weather at the time of the crash was "was appropriate for visual flight rules flying", and that there were only light winds and few clouds.

It said it may take weeks or even months for the investigation to determine the cause of the crash.

"You hear about somebody struck by lightning, it's overwhelming, but by a landing airplane — never heard nothing like that before," one neighbor told WCAX.