A LIGHT aircraft crashed in a ball of flame near a North Yorkshire airfield, shortly after its pilot turned back because of a radio warning about an open door.

Retired company boss Brian McClelland was taking off from Sherburn Aero Club near Selby after having a new intercom system fitted to his Tobago TB10 aircraft.

Club members spotted an open luggage compartment door and Mr McClelland was informed by radio.

Witnesses told coroner John Sleightholme at the Harrogate hearing how the 69-year-old pilot had responded calmly and said he would return to the airfield, land and close the door.

Minutes later he was dead from multiple injuries as his aircraft plunged on to nearby farmland and exploded into a ball of flame.

A jury returned an accidental death verdict on Mr McClelland, from Honley, near Huddersfield, who normally based his aircraft near his home or at Leeds Bradford Airport.

The coroner read a statement from Ian Roe, co-pilot of a plane which had landed at Sherburn immediately before Mr McClelland took off. He saw the Tobago begin to turn back and lose height it never regained.

''From its position and altitude the pilot could never hope to land. It began to bank to the right and carried on doing so to an irretrievable altitude. The starboard wing dropped and the plane stalled and took up a vertical position to fall to the ground and burst into flames.''

Sherburn Aero Club's chief flying instructor John Castle Smith said he had been told of the open luggage door on the Tobago, and waited until the aircraft reached about 400ft before telling the pilot.

Mr McClelland had replied calmly: ''I didn't know. I will return and land.'' He had commenced a very steep right turn. ''From the moment he commenced his turn the aircraft was almost immediately on its right wing tip and was irrecoverable. It was in an almost 80 degree angle of bank. I would only contemplate that sort of turn in a powerful aerobatic aircraft.''

Air accident investigator Robin Tidyman said Mr McClelland had been trained in the RAF in 1953 and had flown 145 hours. He had started flying privately in 1991 and had clocked up 690 hours, 420 of them in the Tobago. ''It is conceivable this aircraft went into an aerodynamic stall at the last minute primarily because of the angle of bank.''

Updated: 08:11 Tuesday, October 09, 2001