This report appeared in The News (Portsmouth).
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/latest/P...?articlepage=1
"A pilot had a lucky escape after his plane lost control and crashed into a fuel tanker.
Dennis Hammant, 70, had just landed his propeller-powered Russian Yak at the former HMS Daedalus, Lee-on-the-Solent, when its brakes failed.
The pensioner was helpless as his plane headed directly for the industrial tanker half-laden with fuel.
Luckily he clipped a protective 3ft safety wall and was sent crashing into the tanker's cab – just avoiding the fuel container.
Mr Hammant said: 'It was a split second really. It happened so quickly that I've been going through it in my mind trying to work out what happened.
'It's just one of those things. This hasn't put me off flying – it would take a bit more than that.'
Hampshire fire spokesman Mark Jones said: 'If he had hit the tank, the worst case scenario would be that it would have exploded on impact.
'If that had happened there would have been a big fireball – I doubt very much he would have survived.'
The £45,000 plane crashed about 12.30pm yesterday, causing thousands of pounds' worth of damage.
Mr Hammant, from Warnford, near Southampton, managed to get out and away from the plane – about the same size as a Spitfire – as emergency services rushed to the site.
The airfield fire service was first on the scene followed by two fire crews from Gosport, one from Fareham and one from Copnor.
An ambulance also sped to the former MoD airfield, which straddles the Fareham and Lee-on-the-Solent boundary, and checked over the pilot, who was shaken by the incident but didn't require any hospital treatment. Mr Jones said: 'He seemed more relieved than anything; he realised how serious it could have been and seemed fine about it, but was clearly a bit upset because of the damage to his plane.'
The fuel tanker was parked in a special safety area near a glider hangar at Daedalus and there was no-one in the cab at the time of the incident.
The crash happened on the section of Daedalus owned by the Maritime and Coastguard agency.
The other half of the 204-acre former MoD land is owned by the South East England Development Agency.
The plane crash could be investigated by the United Kingdom Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
The branch is part of the Department for Transport and is responsible for the investigation of civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents within the UK.
It determines the circumstances and causes of an accident so they can be avoided in the future – and does not apportion blame or liability."
Well done Rob Dabrowski for writing what appears to be a very reasonable article.