Daily Telegraph report
Brain surgeon cleared over air crash
A brain surgeon accused of crashing his hired light aircraft into a family home because he did not fill up with enough fuel has been cleared of endangering the public.
Prosecutors offered no further evidence on the fourth day of Donald Campbell's trial after a former chief pilot of Concorde and British Airways said the plane was "an accident waiting to happen".
Judge Anthony Thorpe directed not guilty verdicts on two charges of endangering the safety of an aircraft and endangering people and property.
Campbell, 54, was cleared after Capt William Lowe said fuel records for the Piper Seneca were "inadequate" before Mr Campbell had hired the aircraft for a return trip to Sheffield from Shoreham Airport in Sussex.
The court heard that the Piper ran out of fuel as it came in to land at Shoreham and crashed into the roof of a £200,000 property near the airfield. Campbell escaped with cuts and bruises while the occupants of the house were out when the crash happened.
The prosecution had claimed that the plane ran out of fuel because Campbell blundered when he converted US gallons into litres and put 23 too few litres into the plane for the journey. But Capt Lowe, a defence witness, said that although the full tank capacity was 128 gallons, only 123 were usable.