'We were just feet away from Shoreham plane crash'

Ben Bowie (left) and Sophia Knight (lright) both survived the Shoreham airshow crash

Ten years ago a beautiful summer's day turned into a nightmare.

A fighter jet on display at the Shoreham airshow crashed onto a busy A road, creating a large fireball that tore through several vehicles.

Eleven men were killed and 16 others injured in the UK's deadliest air show accident since 1952.

The BBC spoke to two survivors who narrowly escaped death that day.

'Huge fireball'

Ben Bowie (pictured) described the scene as like something out of a film

Ben Bowie, from Lewes, was heading to the beach with his family on 22 August. They were queuing in traffic when the Hawker Hunter plane crashed just feet in front of their camper van.

"It was a lovely day. We were all excited to go to the beach.

"We were approaching the traffic lights and then out of nowhere came this incredible sound.

"Little did we know, the plane was approaching from behind. It missed by a matter of feet.

"Suddenly this huge fireball exploded in front of us.

"It was over very, very quickly, but it was like something from a movie.

"My wife and I looked at each other and for a split second were speechless – then my daughters started screaming.

"As a father, my first concern was to see if the girls were okay, but there was nothing I could do to gloss it over.

"No words could soften the impact of what just happened."

"I jumped out of the van. The first thing that struck me was the silence. There was just a crackle of flames and people standing in shock.

"Everything in front was destroyed.

"From nowhere, a beautiful day on the beach [turned] to death, flames and the smell of kerosene.

"When something that violent, that scary, that noisy, that terrifying happens, it sears its way into your brain in a way that very few things will."

'It ate away at me'

Mr Bowie had constant flashbacks following the disaster. He reported suffering severe PTSD, but has now recovered and looks at life differently.

"No matter what I was doing, [the crash] would appear in my head - exactly like a tape being played over and over again.

"I could not control my brain.

"For a long time, I was out of action. I could not function. Any loud noise was enough to trigger a full-on meltdown.

"The other thing I thought over and over again was... what if the plane had killed me and my wife and left our children as orphans?

"I found it eating away at me."

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"Ten years on I can now control my feelings about what happened.

"When you come that close to the end of your life, you suddenly realise how fragile it is.

"You really have to enjoy what you can."

'We knew people had died'

Sophia Knight (pictured) changed her life after the disaster

Sophia Knight, from a village near Arundel, and her partner Nick were sitting by the A27 watching the airshow when the plane crashed.

"A jet caught our attention as it flew over the bridge. You could feel the power from it.

"I remember feeling so incredibly awed.

"Then we heard this noise which was not like anything you can describe.

"We were just standing there and this fireball came at us.

"But we were in a state of paralysis. Our brains were trying to process what was going on.

"The fireball kept growing and growing. I started to feel the heat. It was coming straight at us.

"I remember grabbing hold of Nick's arm and bombing it up the road.

"I've never been so scared in my life.

"Eventually, we stopped running.

"[Nick] took me in his arms and we stood there a really, really long time.

"We knew that people died.

"I made a conscious effort not to look because you can't unsee things like that.

"At one point, I was screaming because I had never experienced such shock.

"I remember feeling really horrible because there were children there. They didn't need to see a human in that state.

"I felt so guilty."

'There was nothing else for a long time'

Sophia ran a marathon to help overcome her trauma. Having left school without qualifications, the crash inspired her to get educated.

"There was nothing else in life for quite a long time [afterwards].

"I don't remember going to work. I don't remember cooking. I don't remember even going out."

"A year after the Shoreham air disaster, I ran the Brighton Marathon for charity."

"People who have experienced something very painful or traumatic [can] have this overwhelming need to make it count.

"Training kept me focused. It didn't leave me with too much time to get lost in my own thoughts. It drove me."

"I can't imagine what it would have been like without having that reason to live."

Ms Knight decided to educate herself in honour of the victims

"It's a very strange thing to say but I had a little bit of guilt for being a survivor.

"Every time I do something that's completely out of my comfort zone it's because I'm trying to live for them.

"I am days away from completing a four-year apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer and, as a 51 year old woman, that really does feel like my greatest accomplishment.

"My life now is at a place where I can absolutely guarantee it would not be if it hadn't been for the events of 2015.

"Shoreham left me with a sense of needing to make my life worth something more."