Four people were killed when a light aircraft crashed in flames in North Yorkshire today.

CRASH SCENE: A police walks towards part of the wreckage of the aircraft in which four people died today

It is feared that one of the victims is Naburn businessman and experienced pilot Gerry Davitt. Two of the four men who died were members of Sherburn-in-Elmet Aero Club, near Selby, and were experienced pilots.

Club chairman Barry Softley said the four-seater light aircraft left the Sherburn runway just before 8.30am on a journey to Europe. It came down about ten minutes later Mr Davitt's schoolboy son, Joe, won a Child of Courage accolade after taking the controls of his father's Beech Sundowner in a previous air drama at a spot close by the scene of today's disaster.

The then 11-year-old flew the plane when it lost half its landing gear on the approach to Breighton airstrip in February 1996.

He had to take the controls so that his father could tell passengers how to prepare for landing.

Joe, from Naburn, flew for several minutes before handing the controls back to his father, who landed it on its belly on a grass airstrip at Sherburn-in-Elmet.

He was chosen as one of the country's Children of Courage by Woman's Own magazine and a year after the incident became the youngest person in the country to pass a special flying course.

The Mooney 201 single-engine light aircraft plummeted from the sky today "like a stone" into a field near the A63 north east of Hemingbrough, near Selby. The aircraft burst into flames, sending huge plumes of smoke into the sky.

Eye-witness Robert Dennis, who lives near the crash scene at Brackenholme, said he was feeding his dogs when he heard an engine cut out.

He said: "The plane was still above the clouds and I heard the engine start up again. I heard a droning noise, and saw it spinning down through the clouds.

"The pilot tried to level out, then I heard a loud thud. I ran inside the house and dialled 999." Mr Dennis added: "I looked back over my shoulder and smoke was rising from the field where it had crashed, about half a mile from the A63.

"I thought to myself 'He won't get out of that,' because the aircraft was completely out of control."

Farmer David Hare said the plane had come down on his land in a 22-acre field of wheat. He said he had gone to the field to see if he could do anything to help after hearing about the crash.

"But as soon as I saw the wreckage I thought there wouldn't be anything I could do. It just looked like a small car on fire. The flames were six or seven foot high.

Another local resident, David Dykes, 71, said he had seen the flames in the distance. "I'm just sorry for whoever was inside. It's a sad day."

The retired garage owner said: "I just saw a ball of flame. I never heard a thing.

"All I could see was a fire and smoke coming from the field. I know the local farmer and I thought it might be him having a fire there.

"I saw nothing come down, just a heap of flames. Then all the fire engines came, there were dozens of them."

A North Yorkshire police spokesman said the silver and red aircraft landed in the middle of a corn field, about 20 yards from overhead power cables.

North Yorkshire Ambulance Service spokesman Nigel Metcalfe said: "Crews told me the only recognisable piece of the aircraft was the tail end."

A Selby fire brigade spokesman said the aircraft was on fire when they arrived at the scene. Firefighters from Selby and Humberside used foam-making hoses to extinguish the blaze.

The crash triggered a full-scale emergency alert. Chief Inspector Brian Outhwaite said Selby police received a call from a local resident at 8.40am, saying that he had heard the sound of an aircraft in distress followed by a loud explosion.

When police arrived they found the plane still on fire in open farmland and on approaching the wreckage found the remains of four people.

He said the Civil Aviation Authority Accident Investigation Team was on route to the scene of the crash.

He was not aware of any distress call being made. The fire services assistant divisional, officer Phil Wade, said seven crews from Humberside and North Yorkshire attended and used foam to put out the flames.

He believed that the plane's occupants would have been killed by the impact.

Tragedy in the skies

by Stephen Lewis

But air travel still safer than driving a car. As details of today's air tragedy at Hemingbrough continue to unfold, Stephen Lewis looks back to other accidents in the skies above our region

The Knight Air 20-seat Bandeirante plane was just minutes into its flight to Aberdeen when something went wrong. Two minutes after taking off from Leeds-Bradford airport during a thunderstorm, the pilot asked air traffic controllers for permission to return, saying an "artificial horizon" instrument on board had developed problems.

Shortly afterwards the twin-engined aircraft plunged into a downward spiral from a height of 3,600 feet and crashed into a barley field just outside the village of Dunkeswick, near Harrogate.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane burst into flames and begin to break up as it fell in May 1995. It exploded on impact, killing instantly all 12 people on board - nine passengers and three crew.

An inquest into the tragedy ruled out lightning strikes as a cause, and found faulty flight instruments were to blame.

The plane had had no reported defects before take-off. Dunkeswick pales in comparison with air tragedies such as Lockerbie. Nevertheless, it sent shockwaves through the region.

A year after the disaster, more than 100 villagers joined relatives and friends for a special memorial service inside a packed St Barnabas Church at Weeton - less than a mile from where the plane came down.

The Bishop of Ripon, the Right Reverend David Young, dedicated a memorial stone to the victims and said: "The local community feel keenly about the tragedy that occurred among them a year ago.

"The sympathy felt towards the families and friends who lost loved ones in the disaster is very great and I can certainly identify with the profound sense of sorrow felt by local people."

It is not the first time, though, that tragedy has struck in the skies over Yorkshire - nor, sadly, will today's crash be the last.

In July 1997, a 75-year-old woman died when the hot-air balloon in which she was a passenger exploded after hitting power lines at North Ferriby near Hull.

Just a month later, witnesses watched in horror as a light aircraft and a helicopter collided 1,700 feet above Long Marston, sending the two craft plummeting to the ground.

Three men miraculously escaped with their lives. In May 1996 an RAF Tucano from Linton-on-Ouse crashed into a cornfield near Wetwang. Two pilots parachuted to safety.

In March 1995 a pilot died when his Cessna plane crashed into a factory near Selby. It later emerged that the pilot, a Wakefield man Frank Reynolds had suffered from heart trouble.

And in March 1994, pilot John Hayes cheated death when his Piper Pawnee overshot the airfield at the Yorkshire Gliding Club, near Thirsk, and crashed into woods on Sutton Bank.

In August 1981 a farmer and his son from North Duffield, near Selby, were killed when their helicopter crashed into a sugar beet field not far from the scene of today's crash.

Despite all the headlines about air tragedies, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority today insisted air travel was safe.

Air accidents were rare, he said, and even when they did happen, there had been huge improvements made in survivability.

Statistically air travel was 13 times safer than travelling by car, and three times safer than rail, he said.

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