Dread as plane seen crashing to ground

Tom Charter was strolling with his father and dogs on Sunday, July 3 when he spotted the 1930s Bucker Jungmann plane preparing for an air display at Shuttleworth.

He said: “We had been watching him fly around overhead, warming up and my dad said ‘that plane doesn’t sound right’.

“He did a few loop the loops as they do then he went away.

“He came back and it was just silent; there was no engine noise at all.

“We realised he was going to come down. It was 70 or 80 metres down into the field. He hit the crop and flipped over onto his roof.

“It all went into slow motion. It was horrible.”

Tom quickly made his way through the oil seed rape towards the aircraft and dialled the emergency services just after 10am.

He added: “I was dreading what I was going to find.”

The 44-year-old pilot was uninjured and called Tom the following day to tell him that he was ok.

To read the full story see the Biggleswade Chronicle of Friday, July 8.