Three people died in a helicopter crash in the north of Baden-Württemberg.
According to a spokesman, it was initially not known whether anyone was still missing.
Investigators would have to find out where the Robinson R44 helicopter started.
Then there would probably also be indications of how many people were on board.
The helicopter crashed early on Sunday afternoon over a forest in Buchen, near the border with Hesse and Bavaria.
The background was initially unclear.
"The debris field is huge," said a local police spokesman.
It extends over several hundred meters in the middle of the forest.
He has not yet been able to provide any information about the identity of the dead.
Numerous emergency services were at the scene of the accident.
"The situation is extremely depressing," said the police spokesman.
As the newspaper Fränkische Nachrichten reported online, the mayor of the town with around 18,000 inhabitants in the Neckar-Odenwald district, Roland Burger, also got an idea of the situation.
According to data from the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation, helicopter accidents are rather rare.
For the past year, it shows only four accidents involving helicopters in civil aviation in Germany, none of them with seriously injured or fatalities.
According to statistics, there were five helicopter accidents in 2019 with a total of three seriously injured.