Two in plane which crashed in Channel

RESCUERS were last night frantically searching for two people on board an aircraft that crashed into the English Channel yesterday morning.

The Piper PA-28 plane was heading to France from the UK when it came down. It is feared it sank.

Emergency teams from Britain and France were scouring the Channel, in the hope of finding the pilot and passenger on the surface.

Neither of the occupants of the plane have been named.

A French emergency services spokesman said: “British coastguard launched an operation supported by French aircraft and boats including the Abeille-languedoc tug, which has been chartered by the French navy.”

Those travelling in small planes such as the Piper PA-28 are usually equipped with life jackets and a life raft.

The PA-28 is a two or four-seat aircraft built by the US firm Piper as a trainer, air taxi or for personal transport. It has been in production since 1960 and various models have been involved in a number of high-profile accidents in that time.

In August 1972, Prince William of Gloucester, the Queen’s cousin, was killed along with his co-pilot in a Piper Cherokee Arrow after it crashed on take-off from Halfpenny Green, near Wolverhampton, during an air race.

And in January 2019, footballer Emiliano Sala died when the Piper Malibu plane he was travelling in came down close to the Channel Island of Alderney.

The 28-year-old striker had been flying from Nantes to Cardiff, after signing for thewelsh club.

Pilot David Ibbotson, 59, was also killed in the crash.

An inquest concluded that both had likely been overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty exhaust system.

His family said: “No family should have to go through grief from a similar avoidable accident.”