Glider lands in front garden narrowly missing pensioner

A pensioner had a lucky escape when a GLIDER missed his house by a few feet and crashed – in his front GARDEN.

Shocked Mike Baber , 72, was watching television with his wife
Eileen when they heard a loud “thud” come from outside their home.

Mike went out into the garden and was stunned to see a single-seat
glider had crashed into his garden hedge, with a wing resting on the
roof of his garage.

The ASW aircraft had been badly damaged, with the cockpit virtually in
pieces, but the 49-year-old pilot amazingly walked away from the crash
uninjured.

The pilot was attempting to land at Bicester Gliding Club when the
aircraft came down next to Mike’s house at 5.30pm on Thursday.

Mike, of Bicester in Oxfordshire, said he had been watching England beat Sri Lanka in the 20/20 cricket World Cup when he heard the crash.

He said: ‘I just heard this loud thud. I am very pleased the pilot did
not hit anything on the road and we are very lucky as well that there is
no damage to any of our cars or to our house. It could have been so much
worse.’

Eileen, 63, added: ‘It was just incredible. I was sitting in the study
at the computer and suddenly heard a loud clatter. I went outside and
saw the tail end of the glider sticking up over one of our cars.

‘The pilot clambered out, he was in a state of shock but he said, ‘I’m
fine, I’m fine, I’m so sorry’. We do see the gliders coming over quite
low and wondered how close they’d come to us one day.’

An investigation into the cause of the accident has been launched and
has been delegated to the British Gliding Association by the Air
Accident Investigation Branch.

A spokesman for the Windrushers Gliding Club, of which the pilot
is a member, said he overshot his landing while coming in to Bicester
airfield.

He said: ‘It was a privately owned glider coming into land back here at
Bicester, but it overshot. We are very relieved he is unhurt and no-one
else was involved in the crash.

“Gilders are very safe. There are thousands of glider flights every week
in the UK and this was very much an isolated incident.’