Pilot, 78, survives crash landing after plane loses power

The 78-year-old set off from Retford Gamston Airport in Nottinghamshire in the light aircraft, owned by a Sheffield man and woman, but after reaching around 600 feet the engine began to lose power.

He tried to make an emergency landing but there was another plane on the runway so he attempted to land further down that runway and missed, touching down just to the side of the landing strip.

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He was unhurt but the aircraft was badly damaged, with the main landing gear torn from its undercarriage by an irrigation pipe and the nose, propeller and engine also damaged.

A report published this month by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch into the crash, which happened on the afternoon of January 20 this year, states that the cause for the loss of engine power has not been established.

The Rutan Long-EZ aircraft with the registration G-ICON is listed by the Civil Aviation Authority as belonging to Stephen and Margaret Carradice, of Millhouses, but the report does not specify whether Mr Carradice was flying the homebuilt plane at the time.

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The pilot was the only person on board the plane, built in 2000 by Mr Carradice, at the time of the crash. He had nearly 400 hours of flying experience under his belt.

The single-engined kit plane is the same model the country music singer John Denver was flying when he crashed just off the Californian coast in October 1997 after running out of fuel and died.