Pilot killed when aircraft overshoots runway

An amateur pilot died and a passenger was injured when a small jet overshot a runway following a brake failure and the aircraft careered across a motorway yesterday.

An amateur pilot died and a passenger was injured when a small jet overshot a runway following a brake failure and the aircraft careered across a motorway yesterday.

The two-seater aeroplane crashed through a wooden fence at Duxford Airfield at more than 100mph and ended straddling both carriageways of the M11 in Cambridgeshire. The pilot, who has not been named, died when he ejected from the plane and his body was found in a field nearby. His passenger, who stayed in the cockpit, was found suffering from shock.

Crash investigators were examining the scene while the motorway remained closed yesterday.

The Czech-built L-39 jet was a standard training aircraft for the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Aviation experts said that the relatively sophisticated aircraft needed the kind of servicing that only an air force could usually provide.

But the co-owner of the aeroplane, Ken Lyndon-Dykes, said last night that the aircraft had been looked after properly.

The crash is the latest in a series at Duxford, which is home to the Imperial War Museum's aviation headquarters. Ted Inman, director of the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, said the aircraft was based at North Weald, near Harlow, Essex, and the pilot was believed to have been paying a visit to the airfield.