Lucky Escape for Pilot
Daily Mail
www.dailymail.co.uk
27th June 2008
Chocks away! Light aircraft pilot makes lucky escape after crashing plane in fishing lake. He didn't have a Hamlet cigar in his hand. But, like the man in the celebrated television adverts, he didn't let a sticky situation faze him. This pilot, having narrowly escaped death by crash landing his plane in a carp-filled lake, coolly sat on the submerged cockpit to enjoy the evening sun. The scene was photographed on Wednesday evening by an astonished fisherman sitting near by.

Eddie Ricketts, 55, said: 'I heard this strange rumbling like the sound the spaceships make in the Star Wars films. I looked up and saw something coming towards the water – at first I thought it was a car, then I realised it was a plane.

'It made a sound like a big bit of wood in a wood chipper machine – which was it going through the hedge – and then it went into the lake.'

Luckily for the 59-year-old pilot, the lake, at Rushy Lane Fisheries near Bradford Leigh in Wiltshire, is just 4ft 6in deep. He was able to climb out of the Piper single-engined aircraft and sit on the cockpit roof while calmly awaiting rescue.

Wiltshire fire brigade brought the pilot – believed to be from West London – back to land in an inflatable raft. He was then taken to Trowbridge Hospital, but was discharged that evening. A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said the pilot had lost power and had to make an emergency landing. 'It was a very lucky escape,' he added. The Air Accident Investigations Branch is to start an inquiry.