Crash family seeks return to normality

12:25pm Friday 4th April 2008

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A FAMILY faces a struggle to return to normality following the Farnborough plane crash.

Kevin and Gill Wood's garage was destroyed, and their house partially damaged when a business flight out of Biggin Hill airport hit the next-door house just after 2.30pm on Sunday.

Now they are out of their home and facing a long wait for life to return to normal.

Mr Wood, 44, said: We don't know at the moment whether the house will be knocked down and rebuiilt or repaired.

"Although there is not much damage to the outside, all the roof timbers and the supporting wall have been burnt, and there are various cracks in the structure which need investigating.

"Physically it looks okay but it stinks of aviation fuel, there is a gagging smell, as a lot is the other side of the house."

He added: "The big problem is with the emotional side, and getting the kids back to school and back to normality."

The family have sent their oldest son Tom, four, back to Darrick Wood Infants School.

But because Mr Wood, an independent financial adviser, works from home, he can not begin to work again until the family finds rented accommodation in the area.

Mr Wood was playing tennis when the accident happened, but Mrs Wood, 37, was in the house at the time with the couple's two children Tom and eighteen-month-old George, as well as her sister and her children, and her two elderly parents.

She said: "We were in the lounge and we heard this noise. We didn't know if the kids had an accident upstairs.

"I saw my car was alight and we had to get everyone out of the house."

She added: "My thoughts when it happened were that we were alive and safe, but when we went back in the emergency services had moved my precious photos to a safer part of the house.

"For someone in those circumstances to be thinking like that is brilliant, they are amazing people and I can't thank them enough for being so thoughtful.

"All the emergency services and everyone in our neighbourhood have been brilliant. My father collapsed on the grass and two men came up and carried him down the close."