The wreckage of the plane on Ingleborough's slopes, near Fell Beck Head. Photo: Cave Rescue Organisation
Rescuers have released pictures of the wreckage of a light aircraft that crashed on to one of Yorkshire’s Three Peaks on Monday.
The mangled remains of the Cessna plane on Ingleborough’s upper slopes show how lucky the two men were to escape with their lives.
Members of the Cave Rescue Organisation and Kendal Mountain Rescue Team took part in the operation to find the crashed aeroplane after initial confused information about its whereabouts.
The 55-year-old pilot, from Blackpool, was said by police to have suffered minor injuries in the accident, which happened in the dark and in conditions of poor visibility on Monday evening. A 31-year-old Blackburn man, the only passenger in the plane, sustained a broken ankle and broken nose in the crash, which happened high on the south-eastern flanks of 723m (2,372ft), overlooking Fell Beck.
The photos of the crashed aircraft show the plane upright but leaning to its right. Both wings have been partly ripped from the plane back and the fuselage and wings are splattered with mud.
The cockpit of the stricken aircraft. Photo: Cave Rescue Organisation
The cockpit, with its direction indicator showing the plane lying on a north-easterly path, is a mass of twisted metal where fuselage parts and members have protruded into the area where the passenger would have been sitting.
CRO team doctors treated both men at the site and they were stretchered down to Trow Gill about 2km (1¼ miles) away, and transported off the hill in the early hours of Tuesday morning for transfer to road ambulances waiting in Clapham.
The wreckage of the plane, with Ingleborough in the distance. Photo: Cave Rescue Organisation
The aircraft had left Blackpool airport at 7.18 on Monday evening and was heading for the North-East. The pilot himself reported the crash.
The two men were taken to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary for further treatment.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is currently looking into the circumstances of the crash.
