A light plane crash landed on a beach in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The three people, a foreign family, aboard survived with only non-life-threatening injuries.

The incident took place on Playa de Las Teresitas at 13.00h on Tuesday the 27th when the Belgian pilot, resident on the island, managed to bring the plane down after expending some of the fuel on board.

The passengers, his French wife and her 13-year-old daughter, were taken to the Hospital Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria together with the pilot, all with injuries.

The woman and the daughter had slight injuries, whilst the pilot had abdominal injuries and a fractured leg.

The light aircraft, a VLO.20, which is a self-build model, set off from the Real Aeroclub de Tenerife,on route for Morocco. However, shortly after take off the aircraft developed a fault.

The pilot radioed the tower at the aerodrome to say that he had problems and was going to crash land, which he carried out five minutes later on the said beach. He circled a few times, both to give beach users time to get out of the way and also to expend as much fuel as possible.

The crash did produce a fuel slick in the water, however, which was removed by the fire service. The wreckage was finally removed from the beach just after four that same afternoon.

(News: Tenerife, Canary Islands)