Aircraft that crashed on Queen’s estate had been stored outside all winter

A LIGHT aircraft that crashed on the Queen’s Sandringham estate had been stored outside for months unbeknown to its owners and its engine had corroded, an inquest has heard.

Two people died when the Piper PA-28 aircraft came down in marshland near Wolferton, Norfolk, on September 11 last year.

Pilot Nigel Dodds (58) and passenger Valerie Barnes (73), both from Gateshead, died at the scene of multiple injuries, a post-mortem examination recorded.

Robert Vickery, an Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) investigator, told yesterday’s inquest in Norwich that the aircraft was owned by a syndicate to share costs and that this was “quite normal”.

He said that, unbeknown to its owners, the plane was rolled outside at Newcastle between November 2015 and July 2016 when it was not being used, adding he did not know who rolled the plane out.

Mr Vickery said parts of the engine were found to have cor- roded. The inquest heard that the plane crashed into an old sea wall after the engine failed during a flight from Southend to Newcastle, which was the final leg of a journey home from Menorca, where retired company director Mr Dodds had a home.

He had transmitted a Mayday call while flying over The Wash, the estuary between Norfolk and Lincolnshire, stating he had a “very rough running engine”.

He turned the plane back to the coast and told an emergency controller he could not reach the nearest airfield, stating: “It’s gonna be a field.”

An AAIB crash report concluded that the plane had likely The wreckage of the light aircraft stalled at a low height, from which there was insufficient height to recover, during an attempted forced landing following “catastrophic engine failure”.

It found the engine had lost oil and was corroded.

PC Mark Whitmore, who was patrolling the Sandringham estate, was called to the scene and pulled out a plastic window on the plane to try to help Mr Dodds and Ms Barnes.

“The plane had landed on a huge earth bank described as the sea wall,” he said, adding it soon became clear both occupants had suffered “catastrophic injuries”. The jury inquest, listed for two days, continues.