4 die as helicopter and plane crash near stately home
FOUR people died yesterday after a light aircraft and a helicopter collided over a country estate owned by the Rothschild family.
Residents near historic Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire heard a loud bang around noon, before a plume of black smoke rose out of woodland.
Witnesses said it was unlikely anyone could have survived the crash, just over a mile from the mansion house.
None of the victims had been named last night, but the dead helicopter pilot’s friend and former colleague Captain Phil Croucher said: ‘He was probably the most respected instructor in the country.
‘He achieved a very high position in the Army. If you wanted a training instructor there’s no one more highly qualified.
‘Almost everybody in the country has been instructed by him – most instructors have been trained by him. Everybody in the industry looked up to him.’
He was said to have been training a foreign flying student on a beginners’ course when the helicopter crashed.
Captain Croucher, 65, of Ayrshire, said the pilot, who worked for Helicopter Services flying school near Aylesbury, was in his sixties and had a partner and family,
He added: ‘I was shocked and surprised to hear what had happened. He was a real
‘Country’s most respected instructor’
gentleman. Of course it is an industry where this does happen. We don’t stop, we just get on and do the job, he wouldn’t have wanted me to stop flying.’
Witnesses described how the tragedy unfolded yesterday.
Off-duty firefighter Mitch Missen saw what happened from his garden.
He said: ‘I looked up and saw as both collided in mid-air, followed by a large bang and falling debris.’
One villager said: ‘My father heard a loud bang and ran up to the scene.
‘It was clear pretty quickly that no one has survived. Everyone is now helping the emergency services.’
A member of the Rothschild family, who asked not to be named, revealed how she had a lucky escape because five minutes beforehand she had been picking plants in Wilderness Woods, where the aircraft crashed to earth.
Waddesdon Estate gardener Len Bellis said he found the wreckage minutes later after hearing a ‘horrendous noise’, describing the Cessna as ‘non-existent’ but for a 5ft section of burning fuselage.
Two men at the scene told also how they’d heard the plane ‘stuttering’ just before the crash. Another resident said a smell of smoke had drifted across the village after the crash.
The Cabri G2 helicopter and the Cessna 152 single propeller plane were both carrying a pilot and a passenger. They had taken off 16 miles away at Wycombe Air Park in the village of Upper Winchendon, near Aylesbury.
Pilots had been warned that the airfield’s air traffic control would be closed for three 30-minute periods on certain days between November 7 and November 30 due to a staff shortage. The crash occurred half an hour after the latest closure was due to end.
The plane was flying at 2,000ft in the minutes before the crash while the helicopter was at 1,000ft before disappearing from the radar.
Aerial footage shows metal debris including rotor blade fragments and the plane’s fuselage in the dense woods.
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue used a drone to search for survivors, and the Thames Valley air ambulance was deployed.
The Cessna 152, built in 1982, is owned by Airways Aero Associations. It needed extensive repairs in 1993 after a crash in Cornwall. Police and experts from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch have begun a joint investigation into what caused the collision.
One pilot said it was easy to be distracted by the estate.
Writing on an internet flying forum, the 36-year-old added: ‘I’ve been guilty of paying too much attention to pointing passengers to the Rothschild palace and not enough to a lookout.’
Waddesdon Manor is run by the Rothschild Foundation on behalf of the National Trust, which took ownership in 1957. The crash scene is in the estate owned by the Rothschilds but not in the manor and National Trust grounds.
Several films have been shot at the estate, including The Queen, starring Dame Helen Mirren.