US-bound jet explodes on take-off

Five people died today after a private jet crashed during take-off at Birmingham Airport and exploded into flames.

Witnesses said the nine-seater Challenger plane, carrying three passengers and two crew members, clipped the runway with one of its wings.

Police said the bodies of four of the victims were found within the wreckage. The fifth victim was located "some distance" away from the runway after a one-hour search. All the victims were American.

The passengers were employees of a bank in Boston, USA, according to unconfirmed reports. The twin-engine executive jet was travelling to Bangor in Maine on the country's east coast. It was registered with agricultural equipment giant Agco Corporation, which has a 1,800-employee plant in Coventry.

Airport firefighters tackled the blaze near the airport's main terminal while the main runway was closed and all flights suspended following the incident at 12.07pm.

Police said the cause of the crash was not being treated as suspicious and Air Accident Investigation officials were at the scene. Gordon Stretch was leaving the airport car park when he heard an explosion.

He said: "There was a huge plume of smoke. I could see an aircraft had crashed. It was surrounded by firefighters who put the fire out within two minutes. The plane is a complete burnt out wreck."

He added: "It was taking off and there was a loud explosion and just as it was lifting off it rolled to the left and is now lying inverted on the centre of the airfield in two parts with the wings and the under-carriage in the air."

Joan Jelphs, 66, who lives near the airport, said: "I heard the plane first, I heard the sound of it taking off. I heard an almighty thump, it wasn't so much of an explosion as a tremendous thump."

Her husband, Fred, added: "I honestly thought that something had fallen off the roof of the house. It did not sound like a plane crashing."

West Midlands Ambulance spokesman Steve Evans confirmed flames engulfed the jet as it left the departure runway. "Five people have lost their lives. The exact cause of the tragedy is as yet unknown," he said. "We have had reports that there was a ball of flames and a thick black plume of smoke rising to about 100 feet.

The airport is expected to remain closed for some time and passengers expecting to fly from Birmingham in the next 24 hours are urged to contact their airline.

The Challenger, a £14 million intercontinental jet, is made by the Canadian company Bombardier. Corporate users include General Electric Corporation of America, and Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the world's largest computer services company.

Only a handful of Challengers are UK owned but the plane is hugely popular in North America.

In 1990 four people died when a twin-engined Piper Seneca crashed at Bloxwich following take-off from Birmingham Airport.

The aircraft, which was returning to the Isle of Man, came down yards from rush-hour traffic on the M6 after the pilot fought for five minutes to keep it flying. There were no survivors.

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