Pilot dies in Hurricane crash at show

Crowds watched in horror as the Hurricane veered off course before hurtling into the ground in a fireball during a re-enactment of the Battle of Britain at the Shoreham Air Show in Sussex.

The plane - one of only a dozen Hurricanes still in working order - crashed into a field about a mile from the airfield where more than 20,000 spectators had gathered.

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The aircraft was flying in formation when it suddenly turned to the left, disappeared from view and plummeted into a hill near the busy A27 coastal road at 3.20pm.

Ambulances and fire engines went to the crash site but the pilot was already dead. The aircraft was reduced to a flattened piece of smouldering wreckage. No one on the ground was injured, according to rescue workers.

The 65-year-old Hurricane had been 'scrambled', along with several Spitfires, to respond to a mock attack on the airfield by three 'enemy' Messerschmitts.

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Spectator Tim Deacon said: "It went straight down and ploughed into the hill. A massive plume of black smoke went up. The show was stopped and we heard over the loudspeaker there had been a crash and there would be an half an hour delay in the proceedings.

"The police helicopter was sent up and we saw fire engines rush over to the crash site. But moments after the announcement some planes flew overhead in a Man Missing in Action formation. It was very frightening."

Another eyewitness, Holly Russell, said: "It looked like the plane was doing a dive but it was going too fast and smashed straight into the ground. It was nose down.

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"There was a mushroom cloud of black smoke."

Officials appealed to anyone videoing the display to hand in their footage for analysis by crash investigators.

• World War Two vintage aircraft crashes have claimed at least eight lives over the past 17 years. Wealthy property developer Charles Church died in 1990 and pilot David Moore two years later when their Spitfires crashed.

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In 2001 Martin Sargeant, 56, died in his Spitfire in the third fatal airshow crash in as many days, following the deaths of three men at Biggin Hill in Kent.

And in 2003 two Royal Navy airmen were killed in their twoseater Fairey Firefly at Duxford airshow in Cambridgeshire.