British couple die after car plunges off island road

Richard Addicott and his wife Rita Garcia Bolanos died alongside two other family members in crash

The Spanish island of Gran Canaria requires travellers to drive through steep mountain ranges (Getty Images)

A British pilot and his wife, as well as two members of her family, have all died after their car crashed 75 metres off a road on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria.

Richard Addicott, his wife Rita Garcia Bolanos, and her father and sister were all killed in the accident, Spanish media reports.

Mr Addicott, a relief captain for Norwegian Air, and the others had reportedly left the family home after visiting a grandmother and were travelling at night through fog and rain to the city of Las Palmas, where they lived.

The Government of the Canary Islands released an incident report on Thursday which said two men and two women had died in an accident on the GC-21 highway in Galdar, in the north of the island.

A local highway service reported the discovery of a vehicle at the bottom of a ravine, 75 metres from the road, to the Emergencies and Security Coordination Centre (CECOES) 1-1-2 shortly before 4pm on Wednesday.

According to La Nueva Espana newspaper, initial inquiries by local authorities indicate the incident may have occurred between 9pm and 10pm on Tuesday.

Emergency services, including a helicopter, rushed to the scene. A rescue worker was able to descend to the vehicle and confirmed four people had died.

However, bad weather conditions and the instability of the vehicle posed a challenge in recovering the bodies.

All four of the deceased were recovered by firefighters on Thursday, said the incident report. It was not immediately clear who was driving at the time of the accident, which took place around four kilometres after the family left the town of Artenara, it was reported.

La Nueava Espana named those in the crash as Rita Garcia Bolanos, her husband Richard, her father Ivan Garcia Buelga, and her sister Marta Garcia Bolanos.

A spokesperson for Norwegian Air said: “Our thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of Relief Captain Richard Addicott during this sad time.”

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British man following his death in Gran Canaria, and are in contact with the Spanish authorities.”

Mr Addicott was a former employee of Ryanair. His ex-colleagues paid tribute to him after the news was broken to them in a public Facebook group for Ryanair staff in Gran Canaria.

Many reacted to the news in shock and described him as “a very great person” and “one of the nicest [people] I’ve ever met”.

Additional reporting by PA