TWO York graduates were knocked off their feet when a Russian space rocket malfunctioned before plummeting back to earth and exploding less than half a mile from where they stood.

Neil Melville and David Waterman, both aged 22, were slightly hurt when the unmanned 300-tonne Soyuz rocket crashed just seconds after take-off, killing a Russian soldier.

The rocket carried irreplaceable materials that would have made the former York undergraduates the first European students to have an experiment in space.

Neil, who now works for the European Space Agency (ESA), said he was still coming to terms with the accident at a launch site at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelska region of Russia, 500 miles north of Moscow.

The York-based graduate said: "I am so glad to be alive. It is only now that I am starting to realise how lucky we are."

The two graduates travelled to northern Russia to watch the launch of a rocket carrying a protein crystallisation experiment they had been working on for one --and-a-half years as students in York.

But at the launch an onboard computer cut the rocket's engines when a first-stage rocket failed, causing it to veer off course.

Neil said: "The rocket had gone out of sight above the cloud cover when everything went silent. I now know this was a very bad thing as it meant the engines had stopped."

The two-stage rocket crashed less than 800 metres away, throwing spectators to the ground and smashing every window in nearby buildings.

"We saw the flash and then the shock wave hit us", said Neil, who like David suffered cuts and bruises.

"When it hit the ground all of the fuel exploded - it was a very, very violent explosion."

The scientists won the opportunity to have their experiment taken into space and a chance to experience zero gravity during a parabolic aeroplane flight, as part of an ESA competition.

University of York physics lecturer Professor Peter Main said it was a great relief both men were relatively unharmed in the disaster, which happened on Tuesday night.

Updated: 10:44 Saturday, October 19, 2002