Drivers on a Cotswolds road were stopped in their tracks when an aircraft dropped out of the sky and crashed in front of them.
The pilot and passenger escaped with minor injuries after the motorised glider crash-landed on the A419 near Aston Down airfield, between Stroud and Cirencester, at about 4.45pm on Tuesday.
One of its wings came off and the road was strewn with foliage and debris. Traffic could be seen backed up behind the plane with the occupants still in the cockpit. One of them sat on the intact wing as bystanders checked on them.
Chris Cooper, a spokesman for the Cotswold Gliding Club, which is based at the airfield, said the two occupants, who are qualified pilots, were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Dane Stevens, 29, a blacksmith with a workshop in Stroud, was driving back from a job in Swindon
“We were just driving down the road next to the airfield and saw this plane with a propeller at the front coming in to land and it was going really slow and low to the ground on the road we were driving on,” he told The Times.
“The car in front of me started slowing down and the people coming in the other direction were slowing down because it didn’t look right. It was nearly landing on the road and from what I could tell it looked like the engine cut out and it basically nosedived about 20ft out of the air and then one of the wings clipped a tree and it spun 90 degrees and landed in the middle of the road.”
Stevens said he was one of the first to reach the damaged aircraft. “Both blokes inside were conscious but looked very concussed and definitely not with it — but in one piece,” he said. “I have never seen anything like it. It was insane. It was very scary.
“People from the airfield came over pretty quickly and one guy managed to get himself out of the plane before we left a few minutes later. It was a shocking scene to witness.”
Cooper said the aircraft, a Grob 109B two-seater motor glider, was “involved in an incident whilst landing from a local flight”. He said the two occupants, who are qualified pilots, suffered “some injuries” and were taken by ambulance to hospital “to be checked over”.
The A149 passes close to the Aston Down airfield where the Cotswold Gliding Club, one of the largest in the country with nearly 150 members, is based.
The incident is under investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), the British Gliding Association and police, Cooper said. Gloucestershire police said they understood no other vehicles were involved.
The Grob 109B is a self-launching motor glider where the pilot and passenger sit side by side. They can take off without the need for a winch and their long wings allow the engine to be turned off so it can also be used as a glider.
South Western Ambulance Service said it took one patient to Southmead Hospital and another to Gloucester Royal Hospital. A helicopter from Great Western Air Ambulance also attended and their paramedics helped assess a patient at the scene.
