Police identify crash victims

ALL EIGHT people who died in the Glasgow air crash have now been identified.

Both pilots died when the 11-seater Cessna came down shortly after taking off from Glasgow Airport at 12.25pm on Friday. They were John Easson, 48, a father of three and the founder of Edinburgh Air Charters, and co- pilot Bill Henderson, 54.

Also among the dead were Colin Finnie, 32, an Airtours pilot, and five Airtours flight attendants, including Pauline Moyes, 38, from Renton, Strathclyde, and Linda Taylor, from Troon, Ayrshire. Ms Taylor had been married only four weeks, and Ms Moyes was a mother of three. Another victim, who has not been named, was believed to have been pregnant.

Three other male Airtours staff members who survived the crash are still being treated in hospital. One is seriously ill in the intensive care unit at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. The other two are described as stable.

Police would not say how the eight were identified but it is believed the devastating impact of the crash and the subsequent fireball made most of their bodies unrecognisable.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) investigating the cause of the tragedy, said it would be studying the exhaust of the wrecked twin-engine plane.

The AAIB was also talking to representatives from Cessna and the US manufacturers of the plane's engine, Teledyne Continental Motors, and propeller-maker, McAuley Inc.

Cessna said that a proposal for an Air Worthiness Directive concerning the exhaust system of twin-engined Cessnas had been issued by the American Federal Aviation Administration.

"We are working very closely with the FAA but there is nothing to attribute the accident to the exhaust so there is no reason to move the process any quicker," a spokeswoman for Cessna said.