WHEN Mike Sullivan heard the propellers stop he knew they were in trouble.

The Swindon Town marketing manager was discharged from hospital yesterday after surviving one of the most terrifying moments of his life.

He and five others, including Town chief executive Mark Devlin, his 10-year-old son Stan and director Bill Power, crashed to the ground in a light aircraft carrying them home from Town's first game of the season against Hartlepool on Saturday.

As Mr Sullivan regained consciousness in the twisted wreckage of the small six-seater aeroplane, he remembers hearing Stan say: "I love you dad".

Stan was sitting in the cockpit next to the pilot as a treat and endured the frightening ordeal separated from his father.

The passengers had been in high spirits as they returned from Swindon Town's victory and were arranging a night out to celebrate. Then the engine cut out and the plane hurtled towards the ground.

Mr Sullivan said: "I remember Mark sitting facing me and I looked out the window to the left hand side and saw the runway. I said that we were nearly home and at that point there was a bang.

"Alarm bells rang and all of a sudden the propeller, which had been going, came to a stop."

The aircraft lurched from side to side and the pilot, Frank Kratky, shouted that the plane had lost power as he struggled with the controls.

The plane then nosedived and Mr Sullivan recalls Bill Power shouting that they were going down.

For father-of-two Mr Sullivan, 53, the saving grace is that it all happened so quickly he didn't have time to think that he could be about to die.

"We don't know how high we were when we lost the engine, but you could tell it was really very serious straight away from the way the pilot was reacting. But I remember very little. I'm grateful we didn't really have time to think God, I'm going to die'," he said.

Mr Sullivan came round to the sound of groaning, Stan telling his father that he loved him and the smell of trees.

The plane had crashed near a golf course in Buckinghamshire near its destination at Denham aerodrome.

"All I remember then is a bald headed boy looking at me," said Mr Sullivan. "He must have been a paramedic.

"I remember nothing after that until I was being carried through the 13th hole of Denham golf course.

"Even now, I cannot really believe it's happened."

Yesterday, Mr Sullivan revisited the scene of the horrifying crash.

He said he was shocked by the size of the clearing made by the plane and the recovery team who removed it.

He said: "When you look back on it we're so lucky to be here, we really are. The plane could have burst into flames - if that had happened none of us could have got out.

"We played well on the day and we carried on a bit of that luck on our flight home."

He added: "I wouldn't want anyone to go through it. Not many people survive an air crash.

"We were told we may have flashbacks. We will just have to take it each day as it happens."

On Monday Mr Sullivan had his broken left arm operated on. He said at the time that he was aching all over and was having difficulty sitting up in bed in Wexham Park Hospital, Slough.

While the road to recovery may be a long one, Mr Sullivan says the goodwill shown to him, Mr Power and Mr Devlin by the fans has helped them through.

He said: "We're all really chuffed at the messages of support that have come in from the fans - and not just Swindon fans, but even Oxford and Wycombe fans."

The other passengers and the pilot remain in hospital. Mr Kratky is still in intensive care and Stan has had several operations on a broken ankle. Mr Devlin suffered a broken shoulder blade while Mr Power and an acquaintance of his suffered punctured lungs.

  • A pilot who witnessed the crash has told the Adver it was likely to be a freak accident.

The pilot, who did not wish to be named, said: "I heard a bang followed by a thump. A passer-by saw it fall into the trees, wing first.

"When it hit the trees it was put level again. I think the trees saved those guys' lives."

He said that the plane could normally be glided home if one engine failed, but if it was travelling below a certain speed it becomes impossible for the pilot to control it using only the remaining engine.