Plane hit airport antenna in landing

The Cessna aircraft hit a 50ft-high flight-guiding antenna as it came in to land in thick fog at Birmingham Airport, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said.

The plane crashed on grass near the runway and caught fire, with the 58-year-old captain trapped in his seat.

The fog was so thick fire crews “could not immediately locate the accident site”, said the report into the incident on the afternoon of November 19 last year.

But the first vehicle was at the scene within three minutes, the fire was put out and the captain was helped out of the aircraft.

The donor liver was successfully recovered from the Cessna and taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where it was successfully transplanted into a patient.

At the time, a consultant liver transplant surgeon at the hospital, Simon Bramhall, said the recipient was on a “super urgent” list and “would certainly have died” without it.

The Cessna, with just two crew on board, had flown to Belfast Aldergrove Airport to collect the liver and transport it to Birmingham.

Witnesses at Birmingham described the weather as “extremely unusual, both for the sharp delineation between the fog and the area of clear visibility, with blue sky and sunshine, and for the speed with which the fog engulfed the airfield”.

The co-pilot, who had minor injuries, managed to get out of the aircraft after the crash. The captain, whose right foot was trapped in the cockpit, used a fire extinguisher to deal with the flames around him and used his oxygen mask to continue breathing.

He managed to crawl backwards to a point where he could be helped out.