Smash pilot cheats death

May 7 2008 by Ben Guy, The Journal

A PILOT from Northumberland escaped with slight injuries when the microlight he was flying dived into a field.

The accident happened at about 11.30am yesterday morning when the plane came down in Hayton, near Retford, Nottinghamshire.

Police were called to the scene after the plane was found upside down in the field.

The pilot, a 60-year-old man from Kirknewton, near Wooler, was taken to hospital suffering from minor injuries.

A spokeswoman for Nottinghamshire Police said: “He appears to have run out of fuel before crashing in a field in Hayton.”

Paramedics, the fire service and the county’s air ambulance were also called to the field when the two-seater was discovered.

Nobody else was in the plane when it crashed.

The police spokeswoman said the pilot had been conscious and breathing and paramedics had treated him for minor injuries before an air ambulance flew him to Chesterfield Royal Hospital.

The hospital would not confirm last night whether the man had been kept in overnight or allowed to go home.

The pilot is believed to have been flying from Northumberland to Gamston, Nottinghamshire, in the fixed-wing plane when he crash-landed in a rape field late yesterday morning.

The pilot’s identity has not been released, and it has not yet been confirmed which airfield he took off from.

There is a landing strip at Millfield, nearby Kirknewton, but a spokesman for the gliding club that use the strip said that the aircraft had not taken off from there.

It is possible that the plane took off from another small runway in the county, or that the pilot has his own private landing strip.

Nobody else was hurt in the accident but some crops were damaged when the plane came down, the police spokeswoman said.

The crash comes after one last December when The Journal reported how Northumberland men Jim Martin and Jon Ker made an incredible escape when their plane plummeted 1,200ft after the tail of the aircraft fell off in mid-flight.

The pair cheated death when Hexham pilot Jim steered the nose-diving aircraft towards a clump of trees near Morpeth.