TWO men who were killed when their plane crashed near Castle Howard had planned to do some aerobatics, it is believed.

The pilot and a passenger of a yellow light aircraft died when it crashed in a field between Welburn and Bulmer at 10.40am on Saturday.

A Slingsby T67 Firefly, the plane was a two-seater built locally at Kirkbymoorside, and at least one report suggested it could have been attempting to make a crash landing.

The names of the dead have still to be released, but both were experienced flyers who had chartered the aircraft from the Full Sutton Flying Centre near York.

A spokesman at the centre said the two men had been planning to do a local flight and a “bit of aerobatics” – something the aircraft was designed to do.

“We were all a bit stunned when we heard what had happened – but flyers are a fairly stoic group,” he said.

Experts from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) are now trying to piece together exactly what went wrong with the flight.

Among the issues they will try to determine is whether the aircraft was performing any aerobatic manoeuvres in the moments before the crash.

Up to 20 firefighters attended the scene and set up a foam blanket around the aircraft in case it caught fire.

An air ambulance and a land ambulance were also sent to the crash site.

The plane landed more than 200m away from the nearest houses and was still largely intact.

Chief Insp Mark Grange, of North Yorkshire Police, said: "It looks like it came straight down.

"It looks like an aircraft, with two wings and a tail fin where it should be. It's in a bad way and it's obviously come down heavily. It's sat on its underside so it has not flipped.

"Whether they tried to land like that I don't know.

"I cannot say where they were going and what they were doing in the air.

He added: "Events like these are not common. We don't get many light aircraft crashes, but they do happen.

"It's tragic for the families and our sympathies are with them."