GAZETTE: A farmworker has told how he helped keep a pilot and his passenger calm after their plane plummeted into a field near where he was working.

Businessman Bob Hitchin from Bath is still in intensive care, a week after the plane he was piloting crashed as it came into land at a private airstrip at Manor Farm, in the hamlet of Wadswick, near Corsham, on Thursday afternoon.

The employee, who works at Manor Farm but doesn't want to be named, heard the accident and ran to help.

"I didn't do anything heroic," he said.

"You just do what you've got to do. I'd like to think anyone in that situation would do the same.

"I started speaking to them, keeping them alert and awake, making sure they were all right."

He told how he was with a friend when they heard the plane's engine revving, then a dull thud.

"It wasn't an incredibly loud thud," he said. "It was quite surprising because when you hear a car accident it's so loud and you hear screeching.

"It almost wasn't loud enough to warrant going to have a look but we ran over to that direction and saw the plane down.

"By the time we got there the passenger was out of the plane, lying on his back.

"He kept saying his legs were broken and the pilot was talking to someone on his mobile phone."

The plane came down among crops, about 100 metres to the right of the landing strip. The farmworker said: "There is a bit of crop damage but costs are negligible when you're talking about somebody's life.

"You'd like to think you could do more but you phone the emergency services and that's your role in it really."

After being cut free from the wreckage and treated by paramedics, 60-year-old Mr Hitchin, and his passenger, Kevin Moore, also from the Bath area, were air lifted to Bath's Royal United Hospital. Mr Hitchin was said to be in a comfortable and stable condition yesterday after sustaining head injuries. Mr Moore suffered leg injuries and was said to be stable.

A police spokesman said: "Mr Hitchen is still very poorly in intensive care with multiple injuries but stable."

The two men in the Mooney single engine aircraft had set off from the Old Sarum airfield, near Salisbury, earlier in the day. They had called the day before to ask the owners of Manor Farm, Carolyn and Tim Barton, for permission to use the landing strip.

Mrs Barton said: "Usually we get the same people who use it regularly but they've never used it before and we don't know who they are."

She added: "I didn't even hear the crash. There was nothing I could do."

An investigation, led by two officials from the Department of Transport's air accident investigation branch, began at the scene on Friday to find out what caused the accident.

The investigators at the site included operations and engineering experts.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport said: "We are carrying out a standard investigation, looking at the wreckage.

"We are speaking to any eye witnesses who saw it take off or crash. If they are able, we will talk to the people who were flying the plane, an engineer will look at the plane to see if there's anything that influenced the crash, we will examine the flight details and speak to air traffic control, and examine the crash site itself."

A report of the findings will be published, possibly in a few months' time.

An emergency support unit and three fire crews, from Corsham, Chippenham and Melksham, attended the crash. A spokesman for Wiltshire Fire Brigade, Phil Jones, said: "Firefighters used hydraulic and electric rescue equipment to free the pilot who was trapped."