THE wife of a Swindon Town executive has told of the moment she thought her husband had been killed in a horrific plane crash.

The football supremos were returning from Swindon Town's victory over Hartlepool on Saturday evening.

The light aircraft was about to land at Denham Aerodrome, in Buckinghamshire, shortly after 7pm, when it veered to the left and careered to the ground.

Six people were injured, including chief executive Mark Devlin, his ten-year-old son Stanley, investor Bill Power and marketing executive Mike Sullivan.

Surgeons at Wexham Park, Hospital, in Slough yesterday operated on Mr Sullivan's badly broken left arm and put a plate in it.

Mr Sullivan's wife Anita heard the news at 9.45pm on Saturday night.

She said: "I got a phone call from a friend, whose house I'd been at earlier, telling me to ring A&E.

"It was horrendous. The way they put it across wasn't very nice.

"They just asked if my husband had been on a light aircraft that night, and then said Well, it's crashed.'"

Mrs Sullivan was devastated. "I immediately thought that's it,'" she said.

"You don't get through that sort of thing.

"My friend grabbed the phone from me and got more details out of them. She told me they were all still conscious. My next thought was that they landed and couldn't stop."

The plane landed between near the green of the 13th hole of Denham Golf Club, on the edge of a railway embankment.

The wreck of the six-seater Cessna was on the edge of a 60-foot drop to the railway line.

Accident recovery engineers had to cut their way through thick undergrowth to reach the wreckage.

She said her husband did not recall the crash, but does remember the terrifying moments after the engine stopped and before the plane hit the ground.

Mrs Sullivan said: "He remembers seeing the landing strip at the end, but slightly to the left. Then the right engine let out a bang.The plane veered to the left and started rocking. Then it nose-dived."

A Swindon Town Football Club spokesman said the executives took flights to some of the further away games but that it was not usual to use a private light aircraft. It is thought the pilot, Frank Kratky, was a friend of Swindon Town director Bill Power.

It was the first time Mr Sullivan had been on the light aircraft.

Mrs Sullivan said: "I was supposed to go. I told him I wasn't going to go to the further away games, because it's a whole day."

Ten-year-old Stanley Devlin, son of chief executive Mark Devlin, had a second operation yesterday on a broken ankle.

Mr Devlin, who suffered a broken shoulder blade, is also still in hospital. Mr Power suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Pilot Frank Kratky was in intensive care last night, and it is understood he sustained back injuries.

The injured men are all said to be showing signs of improvement.

Swindon Robins speedway boss Alun Rossiter has offered his sympathy. "I was really shocked when I heard and everybody at Swindon Speedway and myself wish all of them a speedy recovery," he said.

"I've got to know Mark Devlin very well since his return to the club and the ties between the two clubs are very strong now.

You don't need this sort of thing to happen any time, but especially at the start of the season. It's not nice for the club.

"Without diminishing their injuries, they've had a very lucky escape and hopefully they are back on their feet very soon."

Charity fundraiser Keith Mayo is a friend of Mike Sullivan. He said: "I'm devastated about the news, but so glad it's not life-threatening.

"I was with him on Friday afternoon. When things like this are so close, it hits home more."

Lookingforclues

A team of RAF experts is cutting through the mangled wreckage from which three Swindon Town bosses were rescued.

The accident recovery team are sawing the plane into smaller pieces so that it can be sent by lorry to Farnborough where it will be examined by crash investigators.

Peter Coombs, an Air Accidents Investigation Branch inspector, is trying to find out what went wrong in the crash.

He said: "We are undertaking a technical examination of why it crashed. Any evidence that will be destroyed by removing it will be examined here.

"The other evidence will be examined in Farnborough. It's not a five-minute job.

"It's difficult to know when the investigation will come to a conclusion. There's no fixed timetable. It depends on particular factors that we find during the investigation.

"It can also be affected by the number of other investigations that are going on. I have many investigations at the moment."

The RAF accident recovery team, based at St Athan, near Cardiff, are expected to have finished clearing the site by tomorrow.