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Duo survive a crashlanding
From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 19th Aug 2004.
AN Alsager pilot and his passenger are recovering from serious injuries after their microlight crash-landed at 70mph in a field.
The accident happened as they were coming in to land at an airfield in Arclid at 7.15pm on Sunday when the nose of the Main Air Pegasus microlight hit the ground, causing the aircraft to flip over.
The microlight's owner, 70-year-old Alexander Shaw, from Alsager, suffered serious stomach injuries and was treated in Leighton Hospital's high dependency unit.
His passenger, who has not been named, was also taken to the Crewe hospital with severe spinal injuries.
Mr Shaw has since been moved to another part of the hospital and was described this week as 'getting better'.
John Bradbury, who runs a flying school at the Arclid airfield, said: "The aircraft crashed on landing, but there was nobody there at the time so we had no idea what could have caused the accident.
"Microlight accidents are few and far between and it is very rare that anyone gets hurt, which makes this all the more unfortunate."
Firefighters, who attended the scene, helped paramedics treat the two injured men, who had taken off earlier from a farm in Eaton near Chester.
A Cheshire Police spokesman said: "As the microlight came down to land it was travelling at around 70mph. It is believed the nose dug into the ground causing the microlight to flip over."
The accident is being investigated by the British Microlight Aircraft Association.
Chief executive Chris Finnigan said: "At this stage we can only speculate as to what may have happened. As far as we know there were no other aircraft involved and that means the likely cause was the pilot's judgment, weather conditions or technical problems.
"The incident has been passed on to us to investigate from the Department of Transport's Air Accident Investigation branch.
"We do not normally carry out a site visit but will take statements from the pilots and make an assessment as to what has happened."
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