A small plane crashed into a highway west of Berlin on Friday afternoonImage: Thomas Schulz/dpa/picture alliance

Police in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt said two people were killed on Friday when a small plane crashed onto the A2 highway northeast of Magdeburg, police said.

The crash closed all Hannover-bound lanes on one of Germany's main east-west routes. Police in Magdeburg said initial findings indicated that no road vehicles were involved.

What do we know about the plane crash?

The aircraft came down at around 2:48 p.m. local time (1348 GMT/UTC) between the town of Burg and the Krahenberge highway rest area.

It caught fire, and emergency crews recovered both occupants dead. The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

Photographs showed firefighters extinguishing the remains of a red-and-white aircraft. Its tail lay on the roadway, with burned wreckage on an embankment.

How was traffic affected?

Police and emergency crews remained at the scene. It was unclear how long the closure would last.

The A2 connects the greater Berlin area with Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, and is a major route for traffic crossing Germany.