Kent Spitfire crash: Vintage fighter jet crashes in a field near Ashford in Kent

The pilot was able to walk away without serious injury

Photograph after a Spitfire crash in Ashford, Kent, taken by an eyewitness, shows emergency services arriving on the scene (Liz King)

A vintage Spitfire aircraft has crash-landed in a field near Ashford in Kent, just over two weeks after the fatal crash involving a 1950s aircraft at the Shoreham air show in neighbouring Sussex.

The pilot was able to walk away without serious injury after bringing the plane down near Woodchurch at around 10am on Monday, and had already managed to disembark on his own by the time emergency services arrived.

Eyewitness Liz King said that while she didn’t see the plane come down, she heard what happened and photographed the aftermath.

Eyewitness Liz King said she heard the engine of the Spitfire stutter and then cut out (Pic: Liz King)

“We first heard it flying overhead,” she said. “It then stuttered and cut out. We then heard a whoosh sound.

She posted on Twitter that the pilot was OK and that the damage looked “reparable” and added: “It looks like the pilot landed it pretty well.”

An air ambulance, an ambulance and a heart unit were scrambled upon receiving reports of the crash, a spokeswoman for the South East Coast Ambulance Service said. She said the pilot was found to have suffered “only minor injuries” and was not taken to hospital.

Officials said that while the pilot had escaped relatively unharmed, the crash had resulted in the leak of “a large quantity of aviation fuel”. A spokesperson for the Kent Fire and Rescue Service said work was being done to make the area safe.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known by officials, and it came as the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) continued to investigate the causes of the crash of a Hawker Hunter jet in Shoreham which killed 11 people.

Restrictions on the use of vintage jet aircraft, including the banning of “high-energy” aerobatics, remain in place in the aftermath of the Shoreham crash, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.