A shop manager and former bomb disposal officer have been hailed as heroes after they saved three people from the burning wreckage of a light aircraft that crashed onto a busy dual carriageway.
Retail manager Daniel Nicholson, 46, and former army bomb disposal officer Joel Snarr, 35, slammed on their car brakes and rushed to the scene when the plane came down on the A40 near Abergavenny, Wales, on Sunday morning.
The pair pulled the pilot and his two passengers, a young man and woman, from the wreckage just seconds before the entire aircraft was engulfed in flames.
“The plane came from nowhere, and if it had been two seconds later it would have hit us," said Mr Nicholson, who had been driving with his son when they saw the plane plummet to the ground directly in front of them just after 11am.
"The plane literally burst into flames in front of me and it had landed upside down.
"I screeched to a halt, and didn't hesitate – I could see there were people in there.”
The 46-year-old told Wales Online he could see a young woman screaming inside the plane. He tried to smash the front window before noticing a crack at the back.
He described how he and the trapped woman began kicking at the glass: “She was kicking from the inside, helping and eventually I was able to drag her out and a boy who looked to be a sibling, they seemed a similar age, around 19-20.”
The married retail manager was assisted in his rescue operation by ex-army sergeant Joel Starr, who was in the car with his wife at the time of the crash.
He helped Mr Nicholson pull the young woman free before turning to the pilot.
"I grabbed the lady by the belt and pulled her out,” he told the BBC. “The pilot then put out his hands and I heaved him out.
“We got them away from the plane, which was getting hotter and hotter,” added the 35-year-old, who was medically discharged from the army with PTSD after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Police said the aircraft’s three occupants had been treated by paramedics at the scene but that their injuries were not life-threatening.
The plane had hit cables before crashing onto the road near a private landing strip.
Kelly Hale, the wife of a witness to the drama, described on Facebook how her husband had been next to Mr Nicholson as he began pulling the victims out.
“They’re all safe and the guy is a hero,” she wrote.
