Cows love a light aeroplane snack

Masticating mandibles kept their feet very much on the ground

The owners of a light aircraft are regretting the day they landed in an isolated field full of hungry heifers.

The animals munched their way through the fuselage, leaving the plane grounded with £10,000 of damage.

Owners Tony Cooper and Lisa Kingscott had to dismantle the plane and take it back by road to their home airstrip of Oaksey Park in Wiltshire.

They had landed the four-seater Auster J1N in the field at Kentchurch, near Hereford, while visiting friends.

'Turned tables'

Ms Kingscott, a pilot for 16 years, told BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester: "The fuselage is basically a steel tube covered with canvas.

"The plane was built in 1946 and is similar to ones used in the war.

"The animals only ate the white bits - I don't know why."

National Farmers' Union spokesman for the West Midlands, Russell Griffin, said: "Many people on aircraft eat meat - now the cows have turned the tables."

He said cows were naturally curious and would have found something in the fuselage to tickle their palates.