Hampshire glider speaks of mid-air collision (From Daily Echo)

Hampshire glider speaks of mid-air collision

4:20pm Monday 13th February 2012 in News By Matt Smith, Politics and business reporter

A HAMPSHIRE glider pilot told today how he parachuted to safety after an RAF training aircraft collided with him in mid-air.

Albert Freeborn gave an emotional account at the inquest into the deaths of a teenage air cadet and his instructor, who were killed in the incident.

Nicholas Rice, 15, and RAF reservist Flight Lieutenant Mike Blee, 62, died in the crash in Drayton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, on June 14 2009.

The two-seater Tutor plane had taken off from RAF Benson in Oxfordshire on an air experience flight with the pilot and the Combined Cadet Force cadet on board when the incident occurred.

Mr Freeborn - who is widely known by his middle name of Henry - told Coroner Alison Thompson and a jury at Oxford Coroner's Court that he became aware of the sound of a propeller.

''It has to be quite close, if you hear the sound of an engine propeller. It's very audible, and alarming as well, because you know it has to be very close.

''I looked left and down, saw the Tutor very, very close beneath me, then about a second later, to my disbelief, it began to rotate, and rose up towards me.

''At the time of the impact, my head was knocked through into the canopy, which shattered.

''The glider pitched nose-down, looking at the ground. I decided I should abandon the glider, and with my left hand opened the canopy, by which time the glider was inverted, it was upside down. My weight was supported by the straps at this point.

''With my right hand I released the straps, I was helped to some extent by gravity, and when I was out of the glider, pulled the ring, and the parachute started to deploy.

''I was aware of the trainer and the glider beneath me, the glider was like a sycamore leaf falling to the ground, then the trainer came into view, not very far away from me, it looked like the engine was still on full power, and there was a trail of smoke.

''The glider landed beneath me and I saw the Tutor impact into a field of crop.''

Mr Freeborn, 29, from Porchester, also landed in a field, about half a mile away from the wreckage.

He escaped with cuts and bruises but the court heard he has suffered from some post-traumatic stress disorder since the crash.

On the day of the crash there were very good flying conditions.

Miss Thompson, deputy Oxfordshire coroner, told the jury that Nicholas Rice was on his second air experience flight.

Flight Lieutenant Blee was a very experienced pilot, she said.

He joined the RAF in 1964, retired in 2005, but re-joined as a volunteer reserve and training pilot.

She said issues the inquest would hear about included that the Tutor aircraft may have been expected to recover from the collision, but did not do so, and that Flight Lieutenant Blee suffered from a condition called ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory spinal disorder which causes fusion of the bones of the spine and neck.