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Witnesses describe shock of mid-air crash near Waddesdon Estate

One man described hearing a “horrendous noise”.

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Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire

A member of the Rothschild family has told of her shock after a mid-air collision between a helicopter and an aircraft missed her by five minutes.

The woman, who did not want her full name published, told the Press Association she heard a loud bang while she was driving her car to a dog grooming event, near Waddesdon, in Buckinghamshire.

Just five minutes earlier she had been picking a plant in the Wilderness Woods, the scene of the crash site, on the Waddesdon Estate.

Key locations in the mid-air collision between a helicopter and an aircraft
(PA graphic)

“I’m totally shocked,” she said. “I heard a loud bang, which I thought was a car crash.”

Waddesdon Estate gardener Len Bellis described how he found the “burning wreckage” minutes later.

He had been working nearby when he heard a “horrendous noise”.

Mr Bellis said two men came running towards him from the woods shouting, “did you see it, did you see it?”

He said one of them told him he heard a plane “stuttering” just before the crash.

“I just came across the wreckage,” said Mr Bellis, who described the light aircraft as a “wreck” and “non-existent”, apart from the 5ft burning fuselage.

He said he later found out he was just 10 yards from a body in the undergrowth.

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