Two men injured in light plane crash

The pilot of a light aircraft and his passenger are being treated for serious injuries after lying for three hours in their wrecked Cessna near the top of one of Yorkshire's highest mountains. One of the men was said to be in a deteriorating condition when a cave rescue team found the crash site just after midnight, in low cloud below the rim of limestone crags round the 723-metre (2,372ft) summit of Ingleborough. The plane lost its way in poor visibility on Monday at about 9pm while on a flight from Blackpool to the Kirkby Lonsdale area of Cumbria. The two men on board, aged 55 and 31, both from Lancashire, set a course via Clitheroe but failed to climb above thick cloud. The rescue team from Kendal mobilised 36 volunteers to comb a wide area of moorland on the Cumbrian side of the Pennines. They were briefly stood down after reports the plane had flown beyond their area, but mobilised again when RAF staff narrowed its disappearance to Ingleborough Moor. Tom Redfern, the duty controller of the rescue team, said that visibility was too poor for helicopters to search, so ground teams were dispatched. He said: "When we found the site at 12.15am, it was evident that one of the men was deteriorating as we evacuated him from the plane. "It looked as though the two men had both broken their ankles and had chest and facial injuries. It looked like the craft had flown straight into the side of the steep slope just below the summit." One of the victims was able to tell rescuers that they had got lost and were circling round before the crash trying without success to get better visibility. Redfern said: "There was a general feeling that they were lucky to survive from the rescue team." Both men are being treated at the Royal Lancaster infirmary. The Civil Aviation Authority and Air Accidents Investigation Branch have begun an inquiry. Chief Inspector Simon Lovell, of North Yorkshire police, confirmed the time of the crash as just before 9.20pm. The area is lonely and almost always cold at night, but well-frequented during the day as part of the popular Three Peaks walk over Ingleborough and its neighbours Pen-y-ghent and Whernside.