Van driver made 999 call before rail crash

The van driver killed on Thursday after he crashed through a brick wall and on to a railway line made a 999 call to the police moments before his vehicle was crushed by a passenger train.

John Fletcher, from Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, was talking to a police operator when the 15.42 train from Birmingham to Sleaford hit his van. Police believe he was trapped after his white Mercedes van plunged 20ft (6 metres) on to the track near Nocton, Lincolnshire, after careering through a brick wall on the road above. He was killed moments later.

The accident happened exactly a year after the Selby rail crash in which 10 people died when Gary Hart fell asleep at the wheel of his Land Rover and ran off the M62 into the path of a train.

In a separate incident on Thursday night, a car in Northumberland had to be strapped to a fire engine to stop it falling on to the east coast main line. The Renault Clio was teetering on the edge of a bridge in Berwick after hitting a wall in similar circumstances to those that caused the accident in Lincolnshire. The east coast main line was closed for two hours after the accident at 10.30pm. The driver was in a critical condition.

Mr Fletcher made his emergency call at 6.23pm, immediately after falling on to the track, but officers were unable to stop the train. Minutes later he was killed and 15 passengers injured when the Sleaford train hit his van at about 50mph.

A spokesman for Lincolnshire Police said the operator who spoke to Mr Fletcher was receiving counselling. A recording had been made of the call but police were refusing to release its contents. Inspector Dick Holmes announced Mr Fletcher's death and revealed that they had been friends. "This is difficult for me because I knew him. I have known him for most of my life," he said. "He was a very sound person and he will be greatly missed."

Mr Fletcher, 47, was a farmer but had been working as a delivery man for the cleaning products wholesaler Green of Lincoln at the time of the crash. He leaves a wife, Sally, twin sons, Keith and Ian, aged 17, and a daughter, Helen, 20.

Cheryl Beetlestone, 18, from Telford, a rail passenger, was talking on her mobile phone to her fiancé, Darren Gill, 23, as the train ploughed into the van. She said: "There was a loud thump, then the lights went out, and everybody started screaming. It was awful. The noise was deafening. I think everybody on the train thought they were going to die."