Pilot mistook road for runway

A pensioner attempting to land a plane on a road after mistaking it for the runway.

An accident report says he only noticed his mistake when he hit a speed bump, reports Sky News. The pilot believed he'd found the landing strip despite noticing "a kerb to the side and lamp posts to his left".

The 68-year-old, who has not been named, was an experienced private pilot who had clocked up more than 1,000 hours in the air.

However, he had flown for just four hours in the three months before the accident on August 24 2006 and only landed at the Shobdon Aerodrome three times before.

The accident happened during a solo flight from Coventry, the monthly bulletin from the Air Accidents Investigations Branch reports. "When close to touchdown, the pilot noticed that the airfield was different from what he remembered," it states.

"Shortly after touching down, the aircraft ran over a speed bump which caused it to veer left and leave the road." The plane's left wing hit a tree and its right was almost entirely sheared off after colliding with a lamppost.

The pilot managed to escape from wreck unscathed. The road, near Leominster, Herefordshire, was free of traffic as it had only just been built.