A GLIDER pilot has relived the moment his aircraft was struck in a mid-air collision over Oxfordshire that killed two people.

Air cadet Nicholas Langley-Rice, 15, and his 62-year-old instructor RAF reservist Flight Lieutenant Mike Blee died after their training plane struck the glider above Drayton, near Abingdon.

Experienced glider pilot Albert ‘Henry’ Freeborn, right, was able to parachute to safety following the collision on June 14, 2009.

The inquest into the deaths of Nicholas, of Reading, and Flt Lt Blee, of St Mary’s Green, Abingdon, began in front of a jury at Oxford Coroner’s Court in Old County Hall on Monday.

Mr Freeborn, who has more than 800 hours’ glider-flying experience, said: “I was travelling in a north-east direction when I became aware of a sound of a propeller which immediately concerned me.

“I started to do my look-out scan and looked to my left and down and was visually aware of the Grob (the training plane flown by Flt Lt Blee) very, very close beneath me.

“About a second later to my disbelief it began to rotate, pitch nose up towards me.

“I was immediately concerned and frightened about having a collision, hoping I was going to avoid it.

“I tried a climbing turn and turned to the right, but all of the time the sound of the propeller got louder and louder.

“I heard a very loud crashing noise and the Grob impacted the glider.

“At the time of the impact my head was knocked into the canopy, at which point I shouted and the glider immediately pitched nose down pointing at the ground.

“After the initial panic, (and) some screaming, I decided I should abandon the glider.”

Mr Freeborn, who landed with just cuts and bruises in a crop field, had taken off from Lasham Airfield in Hampshire and flew down to Dorset before heading towards Oxford with the intention of then turning back to base.

He said it was “the flying day of the year” due to ideal weather conditions falling on a Sunday.

Mr Freeborn, from Hampshire, told the jury he saw the Grob, which he thought was trying to perform a loop immediately before impact, fall largely intact nose down “still on full power” with a “very fine trail of blue smoke”.

The jury was told how Mr Freeborn had suffered post-traumatic stress since the incident.

Pathologist Dr Kenneth Shorrock said both passengers suffered unsurvivable injuries.

Consultant rheumatologist Dr Andrei Calin said Flt Lt Blee, who was still in his harness when he was found, had chronic back condition “ankylosing spondylitis” which caused fusion of the spine.

He said the pilot’s condition, which gave him a stoop and restricted his ability to look up, was so severe it would have been in the top five per cent of the 5,000 patients with the condition he regularly sees.

Dr Calin said it was “likely” Flt Lt Blee’s spinal frailty would have caused his spinal cord to fatally snap when his plane hit the glider, rather than on impact with the ground, giving him no chance to regain control of the-then lightly-damaged Grob.

The inquest is expected to last six days.