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A glider pilot narrowly cheated death in a mid-air collision with an RAF plane that left two dead.
The pilot of the glider landed safely in fields after managing to parachute from his stricken aircraft near Abingdon in Oxfordshire.
An RAF reservist and an air cadet were killed in the incident when their training aircraft collided with the glider on Saturday at around 5.40pm.
The two-seater RAF Tutor single-engined plane was believed to have taken off from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire on an air experience flight for the Combined Cadet Force cadet.
Eye witnesses said the trainer hit the ground nose first with a violent impact.
Stuart Wilson was in a field outside his house when the plane came down a few hundred yards away.
He said: “I saw the plane coming down vertically, nose down. There was a big impact noise when it hit the ground.”
The 48-year-old heating engineer said he did not hear the collision between the plane and the glider but looked up and “caught the last few seconds”.
“I heard an aeroplane engine but we get quite a few around here so I didn't think anything of it.
A colleague shouted for me to look up and I saw the plane go down behind some trees. There wasn't any smoke. I saw a parachute land quite close to where we were, we saw him land in a field,” he added.
Another eyewitness Bill Baker, 65, was in his garden when he heard the plane and glider collide.
He said:“I saw the plane coming down. It was spiralling down and crashed about 300-400 yards away.
"It was spiralling round like a helicopter blade and as it got closer to the ground it started to go nose down. I heard the impact of the plane behind the trees and about 15 seconds later the glider came down. There didn't seem to be any explosion.”
Gerard Holden confirmed that the German made Standard Cirrus glider that collided with the Tutor was registered to his son Mark Holden, who lives in Locks Heath near Southampton.
He said that he also flew the aircraft but refused to confirm or deny whether he son was the pilot who parachuted from the it.
“The accident is subject to an investigation. It's a shocking tragic accident and these things happen in aviation. I can confirm my son is absolutely fine but I am not going to confirm he was the pilot,” he said.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “A thorough investigation will take place, and we will take whatever action is necessary to prevent a recurrence of this tragic event.
According to the MOD website, the Tutor T Mk 1 “is used for Elementary Flying Training by the 14 University Air Squadrons and 12 Air Experience Flights throughout the UK.”
The accident was the second fatal crash involving a glider in Oxfordshire in two days.
Reader views (1)
Is this the accident that happened at Sutton Courtenay, or was there a second glider accident over the weekend in the Abingdon area? Some reports show a glider hitting a plane -- with both plane occupants killed -- happening late Saturday, and other reports show the same thing happening on early Sunday afternoon. Some report it near Abingdon, and others report it in a field within Sutton Courtenay. If there were in fact over the past weekend two separate incidents involving a glider and a plane colliding with both plane occupants dying, it would be helpful if both accidents could be reported together.
- Phil Jones, London UK
