Former RAF pilot speaks of plane crash near Jersey a year on

The moment the pair were rescued by the RNLI

A former RAF Tornado pilot has spoken of the moment his plane crashed into the sea near Jersey.

Duncan Lainsey and fellow pilot Paul Clifford had to ditch their light aircraft in the sea when it experienced engine failure on 3 November 2022.

The pair were rescued by the RNLI not long after their plane had sunk.

Mr Lainsey told an RNLI podcast of the "enormous, overwhelming feeling of relief" when they saw the rescue boats coming for them.

He said how he felt as though someone was standing on his stomach as the engine first showed signs of failing and the aircraft lost power.

"You can feel a real tightening inside yourself, a kind of disbelief and pain which lasts for about 10 or 15 seconds," he said.

"That feeling, that tension inside… I knew that would happen, and you need to try an overcome it."

After it became apparent the aircraft would not regain power and they would have to ditch it in the sea, they declared an emergency to air traffic control.

Two-and-a-half minutes later they were in the water.

Three RNLI lifeboats were dispatched from St Helier Lifeboat Station in a bid to find the pair.

Duncan Lainsey was flying his light aircraft near Jersey when he had to ditch in the sea due to engine failure

"The water comes straight over the top of the aircraft, over the top of the canopy and you completely feel enveloped," Mr Lainsey said.

"Once we touched down [in the sea]… after that surge of water, we ended up with the engine shut down, just sat there in a really eerily, quiet environment - there was no noise."

Mr Lainsey told the 200 Voices podcast how the pair quickly decided to get into the life raft and the plane sank.

"It literally went nose first and the tail flipped up out of the water and then probably just went straight down to the seabed.

"I certainly wasn't expecting the aircraft to start sinking in the time frame that it did… it was only a couple of minutes."

Is anybody coming to get us?

He said: "You're cold and you're beginning to feel a little bit queasy… but the actual initial feeling is one of, 'OK is anybody coming to get us?'.

"In a real-life situation you have those doubts in your mind, you don't know if someone is definitely coming to get you and you've got to overcome that with a bit of rationality."

The two pilots first spotted signs of the rescue effort when they noticed a French helicopter flying above them. Soon after, they thought they could see an RNLI lifeboat.

"You have that enormous, overwhelming feeling of relief that you are going to be out of this situation," Mr Lainsey said.

The RNLI's 200 Voices podcast is releasing a new episode every day for 200 days, in the run-up to the charity's bicentenary on 4 March 2024.

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