Crash pilot, 16, 'inexperienced'

The single-engine Cessna aircraft came down at Eastwood Park

A 16-year-old student pilot was killed in a plane crash when he was "put in a situation beyond his experience", an official accident report has stated.

Sam Cross, from Hornchurch, Essex, died when the single-engine Cessna came down in Eastwood Park, Southend, last year.

The teenager, a member of Seawing Flying Club based at Southend airport, had been on his second solo flight.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said Sam was requested "to carry out an unfamiliar manoeuvre".

Sam had been training for a private pilot's licence and had clocked-up 15 hours of flying time before he was killed in the crash on 19 July 2006. No-one else was injured.

'Insufficient speed'

The plane landed on a cricket pitch - witness Louise Sutherland, 28, said she thought he had deliberately crashed there to avoid hitting any people or buildings.

The AAIB report said that while coming in to land Sam was asked to perform a "go-around", to turn the plane around in a loop and fly in again rather than complete a landing.

The request was made so another, faster, aircraft approaching would not conflict with the Cessna before it landed.

The AAIB report stated: "On final approach, he received a complex transmission that he appears to have misunderstood and was then asked to execute an unfamiliar manoeuvre.

"This placed him in a situation for which his training and experience had not prepared him.

"The aircraft continued to fly at a power setting which the available evidence indicates would have been insufficient to maintain flying speed and eventually the aircraft stalled at a height from which recovery was impossible."

Flying solo

The report recorded that the Sam's instructor became anxious and concerned Sam would have been unfamiliar with the instruction "and might find it bewildering".

The on-duty aerodrome controller may not have been aware Sam was an inexperienced student, the AAIB stated.

The report recommended that regulations at airports are amended to ensure those involved know when inexperienced students are flying solo.