Plane crash Britons saved by 40p whistle after coming down in French forest

After an amazing escape from their wrecked light plane, they took turns to blow on the whistle.

The sound enabled rescuers, who had to search for them on foot because of bad weather, to locate the trio after a three-hour hunt.

They were taken to hospital with hypothermia and relatively minor injuries.

Wreckage: The mangled plane from which three men miraculously escaped without serious injuries

Back home last night in Weybridge, Surrey, Michel Boileau, who bought the whistle, said: 'They returned it to me when I was in hospital and told me I should frame it.

'All that expensive technology to find us, but at the final stage of the rescue it came down to a 40p whistle.'

Mr Boileau, 60, was in the PA22 Tripacer being flown over France by his friend Michael Vernon, with fellow passenger Lawrence O'Toole, 46, when they ran into thick fog in the Loire Valley.

Survivors: British airman Lawrence O'Toole, in bed, and Michel Boileau

Mr Vernon, 55, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, said: 'Essentially I had two options  -  fly into the clouds over the mountains, or to come down on the canopy of the forest treetops.

'You just don't go near mountain tops in fog. We flew down on to the trees and came down in a stream.' He insisted: 'There's no question of me being a hero  -  I just did what I had to do. We were very, very lucky.'

Mr Boileau phoned 999 on his British mobile phone and was automatically put through to French emergency services who launched a massive hunt using the plane's emergency beacon, radar and the signal from the men's mobile phones.

Emergency services attend to the plane crash in the Loire Valley, France

Mr O'Toole, a sales manager from Basingstoke, Hampshire, broke a shoulder while Mr Vernon broke his foot and two bones in his back. Both are in hospital in Saint Etienne. Mr Boileau had a cut on his head.

The three men are members of the Spitfire Flying Club based at Popham Airfield near Basingstoke.