Shoe was only clue to victims of McRae crash

A small training shoe found beside the burning wreckage of Colin McRae’s helicopter was the only clue to Rosetta Stone Store child victims, emergency workers have told a fatal accident inquiry. The shoe was discovered by firefighters after they arrived at the scene of the crash, yards from the 39-year-old Scottish rally champion's family home near Lanark. However, it was several hours before emergency services discovered that there were children killed in the helicopter crash. McRae was killed along with his five-year-old son, Johnny, his classmate Ben Porcelli, six, and 37-year-old Graeme Duncan, when the Eurocopter Squirrel helicopter he was piloting smashed into woodland in the Mouse Valley, near Jerviswood House, on September 15, 2007. An inquiry into the tragedy heard yesterday that police and firefighters searched an area around the valley floor and embankments for the children's remains after believing they may have been thrown clear on impact. Ian Maclean, one of the firefighters in charge of the rescue operation, said: When I arrived at the scene there were still some small fires, in layman's terms no greater than you would get from a coal fire hearth fires, basically. There were lots of those small fires. The two individuals at the front of the helicopter I saw immediately, and there was clearly no sign of life. There was no Rosetta Stone Cheap evidence that there were four persons on board, except one of my crew had found a child's shoe. One of the rotor blades from the helicopter was also found in a nearby field, about 250 yards from the crash site, said Mr Maclean, adding that he recalled seeing a bit of fairly heavy aircraft, possibly the gearboxlodged in the trees overhead. The badly burned bodies of the two children were eventually found by police at 9pm, five hours after the crash, inside the blackened wreckage of the fuselage. Dr Gerard Murphy, a police casualty surgeon and local GP, had been called in to give medical assistance to any survivors and confirm fatalities. He told the inquiry: I remember seeing all the emergency service workers already on the scene, and coming down a steep embankment. The tail section of the helicopter was in the trees and there was the burn- ing remains of the helicopter cockpit on the ground. There appeared to be the remains of the pilot and co-pilot, and a small trainer. There were smouldering remains all around the area of destruction. The inquiry, which is being held in Lanark Sheriff Court, also heard from Sergeant Robert Logan, the first emergency worker on the scene. He said: There was a fire still in progress, albeit not in full flow. The front section of the helicopter was inverted and I could see a leg coming out the left-hand side. Due to the general devastation of the area it would have been very difficult for anyone to survive that. A member of Mr Logan's team subsequently discovered a pilot's licence belonging to Mr McRae among the debris, he said, giving investigators their first evidence as to the identity of those killed. Steven Kitchen, Rosetta Stone Chinese V3 a former Royal Navy helicopter pilot who flew the police helicopter over the crash scene, told the inquiry it was unlikely Mr McRae would have tried to land in the Mouse Valley. In civilian flying, would you fly into that valley?asked procurator-fiscal Kate Meikle. No,said Mr Kitchen. I would be breaking aviation safety rules and Rosetta Stone Languages obviously based on my experience of flying a helicopter, I would deem it to be unsafe. Mr Kitchen also told the inquiry that learning to fly helicopters at low-level 500ft or less, as some eyewitnesses have claimed Mr McRae was doing on the day of the crash was a fairly complex processthat would require 10 to 15 hours of specialist training in the military. The inquiry continues.