Crash pilot Emily Collett may have suffered heart attack

Emily Collett competed in the British Aerobatics Team

An experienced aerobatics pilot may have suffered a heart attack before the plane she was flying crashed, killing her and her pupil, a jury heard.

Emily Collett, 35, and student Tom Castle, 30, suffered "unsurvivable" injuries when the biplane crashed near Stonor, Oxfordshire, on 24 August 2019.

They had taken off from an airfield in Berkshire 10 minutes before the crash.

Mrs Collett had competed in the British Aerobatics Team and was featured on The One Show with Carol Vorderman in 2017.

Prof Simon Kim Suvarna, a cardiac pathologist, told Oxford Coroner's Court an examination of Mrs Collett's heart showed one of her arteries was narrowed by between 80 and 90%.

He said it was "certainly conceivable" the condition could have led to a heart attack.

But he said her suffering an attack or becoming incapacitated before the plane crashed could not be proved definitively.

The plane crashed in a field in the village of Stonor, near Henley-on-Thames

Prof Suvarna told the jury inquest there would have been "no warning symptoms" for Mrs Collett, from Uxbridge, to have known about or noticed.

Dr Olaf Biedrzycki, a forensic pathologist, said injuries suffered by both Mrs Collett and Mr Castle, from Market Harborough, Leicestershire, had been "utterly catastrophic".

He said that Mrs Collett suffering from a "critical degree of coronary artery disease" so early in life was "quite unusual".

Former Countdown co-host Carol Vorderman was shown being given a lesson by Mrs Collett on The One Show

A pilot who had flown the same Pitts S-2A Special plane weeks before, watched it performing aerobatic manoeuvres from his home in Bix minutes before the crash.

Jonathan Harley, who flew with Mrs Collett's flying school, travelled to the crash site after becoming concerned that he had not heard or seen the plane, but he was turned away by police.

He said Ultimate Aerobatics, which Mrs Collett ran with her husband Mike, was "meticulous" about safety.

Mrs Collett and Mr Castle took off from White Waltham Airfield, near Maidenhead, at about 12:55 BST.

The plane crashed into the field about a mile (1.6km) south of Stonor at about 13:05, about eight miles (12.8km) away.

The inquest, which is expected to last until the end of the week, continues.