A PASSENGER seriously injured after a light aircraft crashed in Dorset has died.

The 26-year-old man from Poole was one of two occupants in a vintage Tiger Moth plane which came down in a field near Blandford on Sunday.

Police said the passenger, who had been airlifted to Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester by the Portland Coastguard helicopter, died there overnight on Sunday from his injuries.

The pilot, a member of a Gillingham-based group which owns the 1930s de Havilland biplane, is being treated at Salisbury Hospital.

Paramedics said he was “gravely injured.”

Eyewitnesses reported seeing the aircraft, kept at Compton Abbas airfield and used for trial flying experiences, in difficulties and spinning through the air before it dropped from the sky just after 3pm on Sunday.

The two men were on a short private flight in the Royal Navy plane, known as “Oily” because of its make and registration DH82A, G-AOIL XL716.

Compton Abbas airfield managing director Clive Hughes said everyone there was shocked and saddened by the disaster.

He said: “During this flight eyewitnesses state that the aircraft appeared to perform aerobatic manoeuvres.

“Shortly after these manoeuvres the aircraft was seen to strike the ground.

“Until recently this aircraft had been engaged in giving hundreds of people the experience of flying what is arguably one of the best known British built biplanes of all time.”

Air Accident Investigation Board experts have visited the scene.