Historic plane to fly again after air show crash

An historic plane that crashed during an air display is set to be restored and flown once more.

The de Havilland DH.88 Comet got into difficulty as its pilot tried to land during a "flying proms" air show at Shuttleworth, Bedfordshire, on Saturday.

The pilot was taken to hospital and discharged the next day.

The Shuttleworth Trust said its intention was to "rebuild the aircraft to airworthy condition".

The plane was designed to take part in a race from Mildenhall in Suffolk to Melbourne in Australia in 1934, which it won.

It raced again in the years that followed, before eventually going on display at the Festival of Britain in 1951.

In 1965 it was given to the Shuttleworth Collection to be restored to flying condition, and completed its first flight in 49 years in May 1987.

Air show spectator Rick Noel said the aircraft had made several attempts to land, bouncing off the ground each time.

He said on the final attempt, the plane travelled along the grass runway but its rear skid began "digging up clods of earth", before it flipped over and ended upside down.

"I think it was just bad luck... the Comet is notoriously difficult to land because it's got such a long nose and such bad visibility for the pilot," he said.

Noel, who lives in nearby Willington and has seen aircraft flying overhead since his childhood, hopes the plane can be back in the skies soon.

"Even my little three-year-old girl knows it's the Comet and would come and get me, and be like, 'Daddy, Daddy, Comet'."

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