Monmouthshire plane crash: Aircraft hit tree before two pilots killed

Martin Bishop, 61, (left) from Abergavenny and Roderick Weaver, 68, from Cardiff died in the crash last year

Two experienced pilots were killed when their plane hit a tree before crashing into a field, an inquest heard.

Martin Bishop, 61, from Abergavenny and Roderick Weaver, 68, from Cardiff died in the crash near Raglan, Monmouthshire, on 11 June 2018.

The pilots were doing a "practice field landing", but they hit a dead oak tree before landing upside down in a field.

Witnesses told the hearing in Newport they heard a "stuttering" noise coming from the engine before a loud crash.

The hearing heard the men died of multiple injuries.

• Tributes to two killed in plane crash

Witness George Phillips said: "I was driving to the garden centre when I saw a white plane flying fairly low.

"I thought it was a glider as there was no noise. It appeared to be heading for a gap between two 40ft trees.

"I remember thinking the place the pilot had chosen was completely wrong.

"I saw the wing make contact with a dead oak tree and flip over. The plane was upside down."

Emergency teams worked late into the night at the location following the crash last year

Emergency services rushed to the crash site but both men were pronounced dead at the scene.

Air accident investigator Nicholas Dann said: "At the final moment, just as the aircraft was about to reach the trees, it turned and the right wing hit the dead tree.

"The left wing then came up, the aircraft inverted and came to a rest upside down in the field."

The exercise they were attempting is a practice for when the pilot cannot get the glider back to the landing strip, and has to ditch it in a field.

They fly around, identify a field and then switch off the engine to simulate being in a glider.

Andrew Cox, from the Air Accident Investigation Branch told the court it was possible a phenomenon known as "carburettor icing" could have caused the engine to fail while the pilots were pulling out of the simulated emergency landing.

In a statement read to the inquest, Mr Bishop's wife Angela said: "This was his love. The more he glided his love for gliding grew and grew."

Concluding the crash was accidental, coroner Caroline Saunders said had black box data been available from the flight then more could have been learned from the incident.