An inquest jury returned a verdict of accidental death on four men who died when their stricken light aircraft plummeted to the ground.

FLASHBACK: A police officer walks past the wreckage of the Mooney light aircraft in which four people died

Eye-witnesses Claire Bell told North Yorkshire Coroner Jeremy Cave she had seen "an aircraft falling out of the sky".

She said she had been driving to work when she saw an aircraft spinning downwards. Only ten seconds later she saw "some sort of wreckage in a field and plumes of smoke".

Air crash investigators told the Harrogate inquest that engine failure may have been one of the factors to blame for the tragedy that unfolded near Hemingbrough last April.

Opening the resumed inquest, Mr Cave described as tragic the loss of the four killed when their Mooney light aircraft plunged into a field near Selby on April 29.

He formally identified the victims as Paul Blackburn, 52, of Grange Avenue, Spofforth; Gerald Davitt, 42, a company director from Naburn; his father, Laurence Davitt, 67, a retired taxi driver from Irwin Avenue, Heworth, York; and Kenneth Moore, 53, of Harrogate.

All died of multiple injuries and were identified from dental records and jewellery.

Witnesses John Denham, Richard Howard and David Skelton told the inquest jury they had seen four men at Sherburn-in-Elmet Aero Club earlier that day and Mr Howard said: "They all seemed in good humour."

At about 8.30am Robert Dennis, who lives near the crash scene at Brackenholme, was feeding his dogs when he heard an engine cut out.

"I heard it try to restart four or five times and then there was just a drone."

He told the court that he then heard a muffled thud, at which point he called the emergency services. Later, from his upstairs bedroom, he saw the crashed aircraft.

Georgina Dean, an air crash investigator, said: "The first people on the scene were unable to offer any assistance due to the intense fire around the craft."

She also told the court how she examined radar data relating to the position of the light aircraft on the morning of the accident.

"Once it started to stall and went into a spin, there was very little the pilots could do about it," she said.

Another air crash investigator, Andrew Robinson, admitted that it was hard to define exactly what caused the crash, but said there were defects with the engine and the auto pilot.

Recording the accidental death verict, Mr Cave said: "The basic story of this tragedy is quite straightforward. Each of these men died as a result of impact with the ground."

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