Pilot Mike Blee was given the all clear to fly by a medic with a drink problem despite having a crippling back condition, an inquest heard yesterday.

The flight trainer, of St Mary’s Green, Abingdon, was killed along with air cadet Nicholas Rice, 15, when their plane collided in mid-air with a glider.

Investigators believe Mr Blee’s fragile back broke in the initial collision and Nicholas tried in vain to open the plane’s canopy before it hit the ground near the village of Drayton in June 2009.

A coroner heard that the man who conducted Mr Blee’s annual medical checks for the RAF and Civil Aviation Authority had been reported to the General Medical Council over his heavy drinking.

Dr Douglas Wyper had also filled out a number of examination forms wrongly, ticking “no” in a section asking if the patient had any muscular-skeletal or spinal conditions, the inquest heard.

This came despite his admitted initial thought on first seeing Mr Blee being: “Oh my God, should you be flying?”, the coroner was told.

Yesterday the doctor was at a loss to explain why he had not filled in the information correctly.

In 1970 Mr Blee, a former RAF officer and pilot, was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a condition which caused the bones in his spine to fuse.

The inquest, before Oxfordshire’s deputy coroner Alison Thompson, and a jury, continues at Oxford’s County Hall.