A pilot from a village near Wolverhampton and three passengers cheated death when their light aircraft crashed and burst into flames on the Channel Islands.

Alan Ratcliffe was at the controls of the Piper PA-32 as it gouged a 150m path across a field before coming to rest just 30m from the edge of a cliff at Alderney.

The 59-year-old, from Six Ashes near Bridgnorth, leapt to safety with wife Pamela, 57, Katie Farrell aged 40 of Enville, South Staffordshire and another friend as the plane caught fire and was gutted.

The aircraft is thought to have stalled as it tried to avoid a fog bank while coming into land in Alderney and was too low for the propellers to be restarted.

They were all treated in hospital after the escape and Miss Farrell was moved to Guernsey with a suspected broken leg. The others were not badly hurt.

Mr Ratcliffe, who got his pilot’s licence in 1982, said today: “We’ve got bumps and bruises but are fine. We were lucky to find somewhere to put the plane down.

“I do not want to go into details about the cause but I am pleased we all managed to get out in on piece.

“My main problem was finding somewhere to land and once we were down I had to worry about the cliff edge. We stopped around 30 metres from the edge.

“There were a couple of small fires after we landed and I managed to put one of those out with a fire extinguisher. Then it really went up but by then we were out.”

Witness Tom Neill said of Sunday’s lunchtime accident: “I did not think anyone would get out alive. There was a really big thud.”