A Scottish oil worker who survived a plane crash in which 22 people died has revealed how he escaped via the aircraft's cockpit.

Jim Hoy and fellow Scot Jim McKay hung on to wreckage from the aircraft after it ditched in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast on Thursday.

Engineer Mr Hoy, from Bearsden, said the plane's 38 passengers been warned by the Libyan aircrew that both engines had cut out and their only chance was to ditch in the sea.

He said: "Once we hit the water I could feel the seat behind me being pushed into me.

"I thought I was going to be crushed against the bulkhead. Almost immediately there was water right over my head.

"There was an emergency door beside me but I couldn't get it open and I was in the front row of the aircraft and went into the cockpit.

Broken chairs

"By this time I'd lost my glasses and I couldn't see because it was dark but somehow, I don't remember how, I must have got out of the cockpit and up to the surface."

Mr Hoy managed to stay afloat by holding on to broken chairs until rescuers got to the scene.

The family of Mr McKay, 51, told the Sunday Mail newspaper that he survived by hanging on to the plane's broken tail.

However, they said Mr McKay, who moved from Dumbarton to Stockton-on-Tees several years ago, was mourning the loss of friend and fellow oil worker Ronald Jarred, from Middlesbrough.

The crash also claimed the lives of Thomas McNeilly, from Coatbridge, and fellow Britons John Morton, Roy Parfitt and Patrick Cox.

The Belfast-built Shorts SD-360 was on its way from Tripoli to an oil refinery at Marsa el Brega when it crashed.

One Briton was among five people still missing from the crash as storms in the Mediterranean hampered recovery efforts.

British air accident investigators have travelled to Libya to help authorities discover what caused the air crash.