Survivor of Basel Air Disaster says he is still scarred by the incident 45 years on

A survivor of the Basel Air Disaster has told ITV News how he battled through the wreckage to save seven people including his own mother.

• David Besley was 17 when the plane crashed. He told ITV News he was still scarred 45 years on:

David Besley from Axbridge was on board Flight IM 435 which left Bristol Airport on the morning of 10th April 1973 travelling to the Swiss resort.

On approach to the airport the plane crashed into snow-covered hills, killing 108 people.

Dozens of women from Axbridge, Cheddar and Congresbury died in the crash.

More than four decades on, Mr Besley says he is still scarred by what happened.

He was 17-years-old at the time of the crash and was one of 37 survivors.

"People started screaming and shouting. The voices were so loud and a bit of the forest and trees started ripping through the plane. The plane started splitting apart ripped up from half way up, the plane started ripping apart and people started disappearing out of the plane, seats, chairs, everything started ripping. We went into a spin."

Mr Besley saved seven people that day and was awarded a medal for his bravery.

"I remember waking up in the mountain then on the plane stuck upside down, hanging with my belt around me.

"I had a bar go through my right leg through the chair. I could hear my mum shouting for me and I pushed my left leg off the bar. I undone my belt and dropped down in the snow."

Mr Besley has described how he went on to save his mother and six other passengers.

"I managed to get out through the rubble into the snow and realised we were on a mountain. There was nothing, just snow and trees.

"I went back in the plane to see if I could find my mother. I came across her and she had her foot amputated at the bottom. I managed to pick her up, took her out in the snow and put her foot in a carrier bag and that saved her foot.

"I went back in to find my uncle and came across some other people and carried them out and put them in the snow and went back in and got a few other people out and found my uncle and he was already gone God rest his soul."

Despite his heroics, Mr Besley says he still relives the incident.

"We came back physically alive but part of us didn't. We're still there. The mountain's scarred and we're scarred. And that won't go. It doesn't go."