A man and woman seriously injured when their plane crashed in Argyll remained in hospital in a “stable” condition yesterday.
The pilot and passenger were travelling in a light aircraft which crash-landed into a field on Lochnell Estate, at Benderloch, near Oban, on Tuesday.
They were part of a group of eight light aircraft from Germany on an annual tour of Scotland and had been flying from Glensforsa airfield on Mull to Oban when they went down at around 10.45am.
The man was taken by air ambulance to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow with serious leg injuries and the woman was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley in a separate air ambulance with chest injuries.
Inspector Julie McLeish of Oban Police Station said: “They are still in hospital where their conditions are serious but stable.
“The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) are assessing the situation at the moment on site along with our own investigation team. Inquiries are continuing into the cause of the accident.”
A spokeswoman for the AAIB said: “We have deployed a small team to a microlight air incident near Oban. We are investigating it.”
The Breezer B600 light aircraft had just taken off from Mull and was due to stop at Oban Airport to refuel before heading to Barra.
Police said it appeared to have got into difficulty and come down a few miles north of Oban Airport.
It is understood that a yachtsman raised the alarm at the same time as an emergency signal in Germany was triggered by the aircraft.
The yachtsman, who was also a pilot, was at sea off Oban and spotted that something was not right.
The crash site was cordoned off as police and AAIB officials undertook investigations yesterday. Wreckage from the plane could be seen at the centre of the field.
The UK Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre (ARCC) received a call from the Distress and Diversion Cell (D&D) at 11.07am with reports of a light aircraft crash near Ben More, Scotland.
This report was followed shortly by a report from Rescue Co-ordination Centre (RCC) Germany of an aircraft Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) activated at Ben Lora, Scotland – 35 miles to the west of the initial incident reported.
