Crash pilot 'was attempting stunts'

An unlicensed pilot who died when his light aircraft crashed on the main London to Scotland rail line in Staffordshire was attempting aerobatic stunts, an accident report has found.

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The aircraft maintenance records of the Piper Cherokee plane flown by Alan Matthews, aged 59, were incomplete and did not show that the required work had been correctly performed, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch report said.

But the accident, in which two passengers were also killed - Nick O'Brien, aged 35, and his wife Emma, aged 29, who lived in Solihull with their two children - appeared to have been the result of a loss of control while Mr Matthews, of Walsall, was attempting an aerobatic manoeuvre and not as a result of mechanical failure it said.

During the manoeuvre on the morning of January 2, the aircraft entered a steep nose-down descent which resulted in a high-speed impact on the West Coast Main Line at Colwich Junction, near Little Haywood, near Stafford.

The initial impact was with an overhead power gantry and a section of the line had to be shut for several days after the accident, causing travel chaos for thousands of rail passengers. The flight had taken off from Sittles airfield near Lichfield.

The report said that on previous flights Mr Matthews was known to have performed manoeuvres known as "wingover" and "stall turn" and it was "possible that this is what he was attempting, but that he lost control of the aircraft".