23 February 2024 , 12:26
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The pilot of an acrobatic plane was forced to parachute out when the aircraft started to break-up mid-flight, an air accident investigation has found.
The empty plane then descended sharply and crashed into a newly-constructed block of flats as the pilot drifted down to the ground, blinded in one eye by blooding pouring from a serious cut to his head. The plane plummeted earthwards til it hit the unoccupied flats at Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire in the drama two years ago.
A report by the Air Accident Investigation Branch found that bonding between two layers of the canopy was faulty resulting in it breaking up while the plane was in the air. Fortunately no-one on the ground was hurt, but the building and the plane were severely damaged.
Just minutes before the incident the 62-year-old pilot, who was not named in the report, had been performing acrobatics in the plane and everything had seemed okay. He told investigators he felt he had "no option but to bail out of the aircraft," according to the report. The man deployed his parachute and drifted to the ground.
The pilot jumped out (Vagner Vidal/Hyde News & Pictures Ltd)At the time an eyewitness told how she saw the pilot bale out of the doomed plane to save his own life. The 45-year-old woman said she was sitting in her garden when she heard the plane fly overhead and looked up to see the pilot suddenly ejecting out of the cockpit with a parachute which rapidly opened.
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George Parker, who lives just a few hundred yards from the crash scene at the former United States Air Force base in Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, said: "I was amazed to see the parachute and then realised that the plane was coming down at a 45 degree angle and was going to crash. I saw the pilot come down in a nearby field as the plane smashed into a block of new build flats. Fortunately no-one has yet moved into them," she said.
Fortunately no-one was in the flats (Vagner Vidal/Hyde News & Pictures Ltd)The plane, manufactured by German company Extra, had been used for aerobatics near Enstone Airfield in Oxfordshire earlier in the flight. After the pilot bailed out it descended and crashed into a newly constructed and unoccupied three-storey block of flats.
The AAIB investigation identified a "lack of appropriate bonding" between the inner and outer canopy frames, causing "increased stresses" which resulted in cracks and the "catastrophic failure." One safety action has been made by the aircraft manufacturer and two safety recommendations have been made by the AAIB regarding the design and installation of the canopy.