An inquest jury has returned a verdict of accidental death after a Swindon co-pilot and his colleague were killed attempting to land their badly loaded cargo plane.

First officer Ian Rhodes, 41, of Sparcells, Swindon, and pilot Martin Bulgin, 36, were both killed instantly when their Channel Express Fokker F27 hit a bungalow and burst into flames. The eight man and three woman jury had been told the aircraft virtually stood on its tail and fell out of the sky from 300 feet as it came in to land on January 12, 1999.

An investigation by air accident experts revealed that the plane's cargo of newspapers had been badly loaded at Luton airport.

The three-tonne weight had been placed too near the tail of the aircraft, making it impossible to land.

When the flaps were lowered during the approach to Guernsey airport, the plane's nose rose suddenly until the aircraft was almost vertical.

Remedial action by the crew, such as raising the landing gear, served only to make the problem worse and it fell to the ground at 80mph.

Ian Rhodes and Martin Bulgin, from Corfe Mullen, Dorset, both died from multiple injuries.

Giving evidence at the two day inquest in Bourne-mouth, Channel Express Fleet captain David Maxwell said he could not explain how the aircraft had been so badly loaded.

He said: "The captain and first officer would both have known how the aircraft should have been loaded.

"The cargo was loaded in a different way from that shown on the balance sheet, which had been signed by the crew. I am absolutely convinced they were sufficiently trained but they did not ensure the aircraft was loaded in the way it should have been."

The inquest was also told that two identical aircraft had been lost in similar circumstances, one in the Philippines during the 1960s and another in Hanover, Germany, in 1998.

But because the report into the German disaster had not been translated into English, British operators were not aware of its conclusions.