Freak mid-air crash deaths accidental

A coroner said she would be writing to gliding and parachuting organisations to express "grave concerns" over the deaths of a glider pilot and a sky diver killed in a freak mid-air collision.

Northamptonshire coroner Anne Pember said she would contact the British Gliding Association and the British Parachuting Association because of the apparent continuing confusion over where it was safe to jump and fly.

Sky-diver Phillip Cheasley, 24, of Colliers Wood, south London, died of severe head injuries when he smashed into 69-year-old Jon Crewe's glider about 2,000ft above the private Hinton-in-the-Hedges airfield near Brackley, Northamptonshire, on 1 June last year.

Mr Crewe, a retired finance officer with Thames Water, of Templar Road, Oxford, suffered multiple injuries when his aircraft nosedived into the ground.

Clearly where any parachuting and glider activity operates concurrently, there must be a robust, rigid system in place, understood clearly by all

Northamptonshire coroner Ann Pember

On Friday an inquest jury in Northampton returned a verdict of accidental death on both men.

They had heard there may have been confusion between gliding and parachute club members using the airfield over the exact exclusion zone for flying.

Representatives from both organisations told the jury that additional safety measures had been put in place following the accident, including a safety buffer zone where neither club could operate.

Stringent safety meetings were also organised to spell out all procedures, they said.

But the inquest heard there were still apparent disagreements over the airspace boundaries.

Legal powers

Mrs Pember said in an effort to prevent the recurrence of any similar fatalities, she would write to the British Gliding Association and the British Parachuting Association, to express my grave concerns about the apparent confusion about operating procedures at Hinton airfield.

"Clearly where any parachuting and glider activity operates concurrently, there must be a robust, rigid system in place, understood clearly by all."

Mrs Pember said she would also write to the Civil Aviation Authority to express her personal concerns that there appeared to be no legal powers or responsibility for the conduct of private gliding in the UK.

The inquest at Northampton General Hospital heard claims that grandfather Mr Crewe appeared to fly into the drop zone area for the skydivers and was told repeatedly to leave the airspace.

Warnings unanswered

The radio warnings went unanswered and did cause those in control of the parachutists in their plane to abort all jumps.

Mr Cheasley and two friends, had already jumped from the plane at about 12,000ft, freefalling in formation.

Seconds later, Mr Cheasley, a case officer in the drugs section of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, hit the left wing of Mr Crewe's aircraft, at up to 120mph, sending both plummeting to the ground.

Roland Shimmons, of the AAIB, told the hearing that a breakdown in procedure between the gliding club and the parachutists about the exclusion zone on the day, as well as a slight change of course of the skydivers' drop plane, may have contributed to the accident.

He added: "There should have been more rigid systems in place to make sure all active participants were aware of the boundaries and activities."