This Is Guernsey

SOLE plane crash survivor Mark Wilkinson has revealed his dramatic story. The 48-year-old businessman from Brigstock, Northants, was rescued from a life raft off Alderney after the light aircraft suffered engine failure on a flight from Coventry to Brittany.

Pilot Rodney Bardham and co-pilot Christopher Davis both died when the twin-engine plane crashed on Wednesday.

Mr Wilkinson described in the Daily Telegraph how he had tried desperately to paddle towards the co-pilot, whom he could see in the water.

‘I shouted at him: ﾓJust calm down. Come to me. Swim, swim, swim.ﾔ

‘I tried to encourage him. I said: ﾓThe helicopter’s coming. You’ve just got to hold on and think warm. You can do it.ﾔ

‘But he went quiet. Everything went quiet. Then three or four minutes later a helicopter came. It was close.’

The aircraft’s port engine had shut down after 45 minutes in the air and the other began to falter 10 minutes later.

The pilot alerted air traffic controllers in Jersey, who told him to land in Cherbourg.

‘I started thinking that we weren’t going to get out of this,’ said Mr Wilkinson.

‘I got the lifejackets out the back and we all put one on. Then I got the life raft out and put it on the seat in front of me.’

The plane slowly lost altitude before it was gliding 10 feet above the sea.

‘I knew we were going to go down,’ said Mr Wilkinson.

He saw the wing dip and the whole plane cartwheeled.

When he came to, he was upside down in a cabin filling with water.

His seat belt was stuck, but he managed to get free and swam to the surface with the life raft above his head.

A French Navy vessel rescued Mr Wilkinson as the raft filled with water.

‘I am a very, very lucky man,’ he said.