ANXIOUS residents sparked an emergency response after a glider flew low over York homes and landed suddenly in a field.

Dutch pilots Frank Romeijn, 56, and Joost Nuse, 35, were shocked to find themselves surrounded by police vans and ambulances after being forced to come down in farmland.

Residents in New Earswick called 999 when the aircraft swooped over rooftops and ended up in fields off the outer ring road, between Haxby and Wigginton, at 2.30pm, yesterday.

But the co-pilots, who were taking part in a gliding competition, were surprised the emergency landing near the city sparked an alert.

Mr Romeijn said: "We had just landed and were waiting to be picked up when all these police and ambulances arrived.

"It's a bit surprising because field landings are quite common and we weren't in any danger.

"But we did come quite low over some houses so the neighbours might have been worried. It's nice to know people are concerned for our safety."

The pilots, from the Kennemer Gliding Club in Noordwyk, Netherlands, were among 40 glider teams taking part in a flying contest organised by the Wold Gliding Club in Pocklington.

They set off from Pocklington airfield at about 1pm yesterday for a four-hour flight to Knaresborough, Scunthorpe and back to Pocklington.

"We had been in the air about an hour and a half when the wind got too strong," said Mr Romeijn. "It was blowing at about 25km an hour and the glider was coming down low so we had to make a field landing.

"But field landings are quite common. About 13 or 14 of the other competitors had to stop because of the wind too. People sometimes see us coming down and get scared but we were in no danger.

"We weren't hurt at all and there is no damage to the glider."

A team-mate brought a trailer to transport the glider back to the former RAF bomber airfield.

"We came over especially for the competition," said Mr Nuse. "We fly in France, Germany and the Netherlands, of course.

"There are competitions flying over different parts of Yorkshire each day this week. We are just hoping the weather gets better so we can actually finish one of them."

Updated: 09:59 Wednesday, August 24, 2005