Elderly British couple die in France car crash

An elderly British couple died after their car went off the road at a dangerous bend in the Dordogne area of France and landed on its roof in a deep river.
The couple, whose names have not yet been released, have a holiday home in the south-west region that is hugely popular with British tourists.

The pair, both in their 80s, were travelling in a UK-registered silver Mercedes on the D78 road towards the village of Brantôme on Friday morning at the start of a busy bank holiday weekend in France.
When they reached a bend heading towards the left, their car continued straight on, crashing through trees down a steep bank before flipping over and landing upside down and completely submerged in the river Dronne.
“Apparently the driver lost control for an as yet unknown reason,” a local police officer told the Telegraph, adding that an investigation into the cause of the crash was ongoing.
A passing driver alerted emergency services. When rescuers arrived they immediately dived into the river to try and save the couple but the pair were already dead.
“The results of the postmortem will determine the cause of death but it looks like they died from drowning,” the police officer said.

Local media said both the man and the woman, who have a holiday home in the village of Paussac-et-Saint-Vivien just 10 miles from the scene of the crash, were wearing their seat belts when their vehicle careered off the road.
Police said they were investigating the cause of the crash, but that first indications suggested that the driver may have lost control of his vehicle.
A crane was brought in to lift the vehicle out of the river. Police divers were deployed to search for evidence in the waters of the river.
The mayor of Paussac-et-Saint-Vivien, the picturesque village where the couple had their holiday home, said the news of their tragic death came as a shock.
“I knew them well. They have been coming here for around twenty years for two of three months a year every year,” Jean-Pierre Desvergne said.
Late last month, a British father and his two young children died when their car crashed on a French motorway amid fears he may have fallen asleep at the wheel while a family holiday.
The mother and their youngest child survived the smash but were seriously injured.
The dead man was named as John Crompton, 31, from Hartlepool. His son Morgan, nine, and daughter Evie-Lily, four, also died at the scene.