Pilot and passenger seriously injured in light aircraft crash near Worthing

A pilot and a passenger have been injured after a light aircraft crashed near Worthing, West Sussex.

Police and ambulance crews were called at around 1pm on Friday 11 February, to open downland at Titch Hill between Steyning and Wiston.

The two men were taken by air ambulance to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where paramedics say they are in a serious condition.

A spokesman for the South East Coast Ambulance Service said: “SECAmb was called to reports of an incident involving a light aircraft at Titch Hill, Sompting, shortly after 1pm on Friday (11 February).

"Ambulance crews including our Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) are in attendance alongside the air ambulance service assessing and treating two patients at the scene.”

The Air Accident Investigation Branch has confirmed it has launched an investigation and deployed a team of inspectors to the site, to being the process of gathering evidence.

The crash sight is also near to Shoreham, where eleven men died in 2015 after a Hawker Hunter jet crashed on a busy dual carriageway at the Shoreham Airshow.