A pilot has had a narrow escape after walking away from a crashed plane with nothing more than a grazed thumb.
Alan Bray, 59, was left trapped and hanging by his harness in the cockpit for 40 minutes in the small two-seater plane, which plummeted into hedgerows after what is believed to be an engine failure.
The experienced pilot was forced to attempt a crash landing in a field at Pastures Farm, near the village of Loxley after he realised he had encountered problems.
Alan Bray had a miraculous escape from a plane crash in Warwickshire, emerging from the aircraft embedded upside down in a hedgerow with only a graze on his thumb
The pilot was left trapped in the small two-seater plane, hanging by his harness in the cockpit for forty minutes while shocked residents called the emergency services
After briefly touching down, the blue and white plane smashed through a fence and on to a private road, before flipping over on its nose and into the hedgerow – held into position only by an electric line.
Apart from a ‘bloody thumb’, Mr Bray, who has been flying for ten years, suffered no serious injuries in the crash, and even came back later that day to wrestle his aircraft out of the hedge.
Speaking at the scene, he said: ‘I’m a bit sore. The pain is simply from the straps and hanging upside down for forty minutes. Apart from that I escaped with a bloody thumb.’
He added: ‘You don’t get scared at the time, you just do what you trained to do,’ he said. ‘You spend all that time doing practice forced landings, it is just instinctive.’
He said what was more worrying was being stuck in the plane: ‘I didn’t want to let go,’ he said. ‘If I moved I didn’t know what would happen to the thing.’
He was forced to attempt a crash landing in a field at Pastures Farm, near the village of Loxley, after what is believed to be an engine failure
Apart from a ‘bloody thumb’, Mr Bray, who has been flying for ten years, suffered no serious injuries in the crash, and even came back later that day to wrestle his aircraft out of the hedge
Mr Bray even returned to the scene later the same day to help wrestle the aircraft from the hedge
Mr Bray, from Rugby, Warwickshire, part-owns the single engine piston plane, which has a propeller on its nose, with five other friends.
The group have been flying the light aircraft – which weighs only 1,050lbs – for eight years.
After flying out of Wellesbourne Airfield Mr Bray tried to glide the plane into a field when the engine cut out, but unfortunately ran out of space.
Nearby resident Paul Van Der Heyden said he initially thought the noise of the engine was from a tractor. When he heard a loud crash after the engine cut out, he though it had fallen into a ditch and went to investigate. He was amazed to find a plane embedded upside down in the hedgerow.
The only thing that saved him from flipping over entirely was an electric line that the plane’s tail got caught on
‘You could smell the kerosene or petrol or whatever it was, so I didn’t go too close in case it went up,’ he said.
‘I phoned the emergency services, and then had to go to the end of the lane to wave them down after one drove straight past.’
Another resident, Tori Danle, stayed with Mr Bray while they waited for firefighters to help him out of the cockpit. Crews were on the scene for around an hour and the Midlands Air Ambulance from Strensham also came, touching down in the same field that Alan himself tried to land in.
After he was freed, paramedics made sure he wasn’t injured and gave him the all-clear. The Air Ambulance was on the scene for 30 minutes.
source:::::mailonline.comUK
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