Final moments revealed of pilot who died when his ‘James Bond-style’ plane crashed in Ireland after British ban

A PILOT who was killed when his James Bond-style kit plane crashed in an Irish field was previously refused a permit to fly the aircraft in Britain, an accident report says.

Howard Cox, 67, from Devon was flying to Foynes Air Show at the Shannon Estuary in July last year when the engine of his Bede BD-5 plane suddenly failed.

Authorities in Ireland had granted Mr Cox permission to fly the aircraft in Irish skies after Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had banned the model here over safety fears.

The Bede BD-5 was made famous by its appearance in opening moments of the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy, starring Roger Moore.

Mr Cox, who had over 3,200 hours of flight experience under his belt, died after his attempts at an emergency landing in a field in Co. Waterford resulted in the aircraft bursting into flames.

Witnesses described seeing an aircraft flying unusually low and exhibiting strange noises just prior to the crash.

One said that the distressed aircraft sounded “like a flying chainsaw” before disappearing behind a hill into a  “large mushroom cloud of black smoke”.

Another said that the plane was flying so low that he could quite clearly see the pilot in the cockpit and the undercarriage lowered just prior to a sound “like a war movie”.

The report by Ireland’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) also revealed that the CAA had banned the Bede model from flying over Britain due its “very poor safety record” – having been involved in more than 80 accidents between 1972 and 1998.

The plane in question itself had previously sustained serious damage in Devon after similar engine trouble had forced it into an emergency landing in 1994.

Mr Cox registered with the Irish Aviation Authority after the CAA ban, and was granted official permission to fly over Ireland in 2007.

He was eight minutes into his flight between Waterford Airport and Shannon when the plane’s aircraft trouble began.

He attempted to crash land the plane in a field in Garranbaun, Co. Waterford but a tree tore off the aircraft’s left wing.

The plane then collided with a hedgerow before bursting into flames and sending debris flying as far as 63 meters away.

It is not known whether Mr Cox died instantly, but an autopsy found “no evidence of soot material “in his trachea, suggesting he was not exposed to fire until the plane impacted the ground.

At the time of his death Mr Cox was several months into remission following a battle with cancer.