Photo: Ray Forster/Flickr

A small private plane flying from the Italian city of Treviso to Kosovo’s capital Pristina crashed amid heavy rain on Tuesday evening in Macedonia, killing all six people on board.

Mitko Cavkov, head of Macedonia’s Bureau for Public Security, said four Italians and two Kosovo citizens were killed in the crash.

“The plane was a Piper type [aircraft] flying from Italy to Pristina, Kosovo. It was scheduled to land at Skopje airport for fuel. It was a commercial flight,” said Cavkov.

According to reports, the German-registered plane went off the radar at 17.44, before reaching Skopje to refuel.

It was found at around 8pm on Tuesday near the village of Kozle, some 30 kilometres from Skopje.

Villagers in Kozle said they heard a sound that resembled an explosion at the time when the plane was reported missing, before 6pm.