Press News
Survivors ‘lucky to be alive’ after crash landing
9:13am Saturday 11th February 2012
THE SON of the late multi-millionaire Segway boss Jimi Heselden cheated death when the plane he was in suffered engine failure and plunged towards the ground.
Jason Heselden, 39, was in a light aircraft with three other people which had taken off from Sherburn Aero Club when the engine stopped working at about 1,000 feet and the plane began to fall at a rate of 600 feet a minute.
But pilot Gordon Elliott managed to control the descent and swooped past trees and power cables to crash land in a field and save the lives of his passengers.
Mr Heselden, whose father died in a Segway accident in 2010, said he believed his father had been watching over them when the plane came into difficulties as they flew over his father’s former home in Boston Spa.
He said: “When we got out we were euphoric, we couldn’t believe we were alive. I’m 100 per cent sure my dad was watching over me and we had the best pilot we could have had.”
Mr Heselden, who is a director of his late father’s company Hesco Bastion, was on board the Piper Warrior aircraft for a sightseeing trip given to him by his girlfriend Gina Townsley as a Christmas present. Her father Graham Appleyard and his friend Matthew Adamson were also on board.
Mr Elliott, who has had his pilot’s licence for 38 years, said: “I had one minute from making my Mayday call to land. Jason smiled and said ‘you are kidding aren’t you?’ I must have looked very calm.”
He said his training kicked in and he was able to land the plane in a ploughed field near to the A1 in a collision which broke a wheel on the plane.
Mr Elliott said he got all the passengers out before breathing a sigh of relief. “They were overjoyed. They just said ‘thank you, thank you, you saved my life’. They thought they were dead to be honest.
“I was so relieved no one was hurt. I feel very lucky.”
An investigation into what caused the accident has been launched by The Department of Transport Investigation Bureau.