A passenger in an aerobatics aircraft that had to make a forced landing in Oulton Broad 45 years ago, has returned to the spot at the exact minute where his 'near death experience' took place.

On Monday, August 31 1970, Tiger Moth G-ANMV was giving a display over Nicholas Everitt Park at the bank holiday regatta event.

But early into the routine, its wooden propeller disintegrated as it came out of a high altitude 'Cuban Eight' manoeuvre, resulting in an immediate forced landing in a cornfield close to White House Farm.

The passenger, sitting in the back of the aircraft, was 20-year-old Andrew Ketley who returned to the site with his family this week, along with Bob Collis from the Lowestoft Aviation Society – who presented him with a commemorative photograph of the aircraft.

The pilot that day, 31-year-old Barrie Shaw, was subsequently killed in a mid-air collision over Tollerton Airfield in Nottinghamshire in 1973.

Mr Ketley, now 65, went on to serve in the RAF and is now retired and living in Wisbech.

Speaking about his return to the crash site, he described how it was 'something that was always in the back of his mind', even though the weather was markedly different that day, when the pair departed Horsham St Faith, north of Norwich.

'We arrived here early and did some aerobatics en route to sharpen up,' Mr Ketley recalled.

'We were soon over the site and we hadn't started doing aerobatics for long before all of a sudden we were down.

'There was a bang and a thump when the propeller came off and I think it hit the undercarriage – the engine made a really loud noise,' Mr Ketley said.

'Barrie climbed out and made for the farmhouse to phone the flying club and let them know what had happened.

'Everyone at the farm was most helpful, including the son, who I remember was getting married the following day.'

Mr Ketley, whose father spent 22 years as a pilot in the RAF, also described how he didn't remember any of the landscape upon his return, but did recall how 'an officer on a police motorcycle ended up over his handlebars', when coming to their assistance.

The Tiger Moth involved in the incident is still flying in Germany and is painted in its original RAF training colours from 1941.

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