Four men dead in plane crash

The plane came down on farmland near East Grinstead

Police have confirmed that four men were on board a light aircraft which crashed in a field leaving no survivors.

Air accident investigators are continuing to search the scene of the crash at Sharpthorne near East Grinstead in West Sussex.

The four-seater Rockwell Commander plane came down on Saturday afternoon, just 100 yards from a remote farmhouse.

Police said the plane was flying from Shoreham Airport on its way to Biggin Hill near London when it crashed.

The victims' next-of-kin have been informed and formal identification of the bodies would take place on Monday at the earliest, a Sussex Police spokesman said.

Air accident investigators are examining the wreckage

The bodies have been taken to the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath.

The spokesman would not say where the men were from and added that he did not know why they were making the trip.

The light aircraft left Shoreham at 1407GMT on Saturday and crashed 18 minutes later.

The alarm was raised at 1425GMT by a farm-hand at Newcoombe Farm who saw the plane in difficulty and watched as it plunged into the ground.

Nicolette Ashby and her husband Russell, who own the farm, were returning home when they received a call from the farm-hand alerting them to the tragedy.

Mrs Ashby said she was shocked at the extent of the devastation.

"It looked like tissue paper all over the field. There was a wing and that was all I could recognise as a plane.

"It looked as though it had nose-dived and the front was buried in the ground. It appeared to have broken up, into smithereens," she said.