Beach horror as plane ditches

A YOUNG girl and a man have died after a plane made an emergency landing on a beach in Portugal while the pilot was having a flying lesson.

The victims, aged 8 and 56, were sunbathing on Sao Joao beach near Lisbon.

A fuming mob on the packed beach branded the trainee pilot a “killer” and had to be held back by police.

Police chief Paulo Isabel confirmed the two men on board the plane, an instructor and his pupil, had been arrested and were being questioned.

Terrified holiday-makers ran for their lives after the light aircraft landed on the beach and skidded across a football pitch where children were playing.

Witnesses said the trainee, who was on a flying lesson with a 56-year-old pilot, was confronted by furious sunbathers after they realised the young girl and man had died.

A woman, known only as Mafalda, told how she grabbed her children and fled as the plane came down over the packed beach. She said it was a tense scene.

“People wanted to attack the pilot and began to shout at him that he was a killer.”

The tragedy occurred on a stretch of coastline known as Costa da Caparica.

Witnesses said the plane had approached the beach in silence so people noticed it only seconds before it came in to land.

The dead girl was with her parents, who were unhurt.

The Cessna 152 aircraft came from an air club in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Torres Vedras.

Investigators are believed to be probing a possible mechanical failure in the plane.