Aircraft crashes in Horsmonden
Police have recovered a quantity of drugs from a light aircraft that crashed in heavy fog in Kent.
The pilot of the Piper Cherokee Warrior II plane died when it came down in a field in Horsmonden, near Paddock Wood, on Tuesday. No-one else was on board.
Officers said on Friday they had found what was believed to be herbal cannabis and also tobacco in the wreckage.
The pilot, a British man in his 50s, was understood to have been flying from Belgium to Shoreham airfield.
He was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, but has not yet been formally identified.
The wreckage of the plane has been removed from the crash site by the Department of Transport’s Air Accident Investigation Unit to establish the cause of the crash.
Kent Police have sent the drugs for analysis.
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Piper PA-28-161 Cherokee Warrior II, G-BHIL
Report name:
Piper PA-28-161 Cherokee Warrior II, G-BHIL
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Registration:
G-BHIL
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Type:
Piper PA-28-161 Cherokee Warrior II
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Location:
Near Horsmonden, Kent
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Occurrence date:
08 February 2005
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Category:
General Aviation – Fixed Wing
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Summary:
G-BHIL was returning to the UK on a VFR flight from Zwartberg Airfield, near Genk in Belgium. Although the final destination was Shoreham, it was likely that the pilot intended to land at Old Hay farmstrip in Kent, before continuing to Shoreham. The weather in Belgium was good but large areas of patchy fog covered the southeast of England. The pilot was using a combination of GPS and visual navigation but, towards the end of the flight, was following the line of the railway between Ashford and Tonbridge. When 2.7 miles to the east of his destination, he appeared to have been unable to continue and commenced a series of climbing and descending manoeuvres in and out of the fog. Whilst in a descending right turn, the aircraft crashed into a grass field, fatally injuring the pilot. Piper PA-28-161 Cherokee Warrior II, G-BHIL