Monday, 7 July 2008

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SHOCK! Sir Alan Sugar crashes his plane

Multi-millionaire has trouble landing his aircraft

Sir Alan Sugar's spokesman said the incident was minor

Sir Alan Sugar crashed his private plane and skidded off the runway in bad weather conditions on Saturday.

The business tycoon was landing the 4-seater Cirrus at Barton Aerodrome near Manchester Airport when it hit a rut in the ground.

‘He was extremely lucky and was visibly shaken,’ a trainee pilot tells the Sunday Miirror.

‘He was overheard telling people in the airport’s flying school club house that he came in too fast and too steep.

'The front wheel took the brunt of the landing, the nose dipped down a little and the propeller hit the ground.

‘Had he been going much faster, it could have been a very different story.’

But Sir Alan, 61, saw the funny side and joked that he had more chance of dying of food poisoning from a tuna sandwich he had afterwards.

His spokesman insists he wasn't frightened by the bumpy landing.

'The accident was due to the weather being particularly wet and heavy,' he says. 'It is also a very short runway.

'For Sir Alan this was just a pleasure trip. He flies a great deal at the weekends.'