Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson arrives to visit Richard in hospital

Farmer saw rocket vehicle flip on to roof

WITNESSES to the accident described how Richard Hammond's car sped almost halfway along the length of the two-mile runway before it flipped over and slid on its roof, coming to a halt on the grass.

A farmer who lives near the Elvington airfield said the car, which was travelling up to 300mph, slid on its roof before stopping on the grass 50 metres from the runway.

The farmer, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "I realised something serious had happened as soon as the car turned over.

"Everyone crowded round the car. There was a fire engine and ambulance already on the scene but then other crews turned up. It only took two or three men to turn the car the right way round again and then the fire brigade took him out of the wreckage."

He said the Top Gear crew had been filming on the airfield all day.
"They had been driving the car up and down the runway during the day," he said.
"I don't know what happened on this run. Travelling at that speed it could have been something as simple as a bird strike or an uneven part of the tarmac."
He said there had been numerous attempts to break the land speed record on the airfield in the same car in the past.

The BBC is being investigated over the high-speed crash that left Richard Hammond, the Top Gear presenter, critically ill with a serious brain injury.

The police and the Health and Safety Executive are seeking to establish whether BBC producers should have allowed Hammond to take the wheel of the 300mph, jetpowered dragster. Accident investigators want to know what training he received and how much planning went into his unofficial attempt to break the British land-speed record on Wednesday.

The investigations come amid reports that crew members were concerned about safety on Top Gear. If the BBC is found to have failed in its duty of care to Hammond, 36, it would be liable to face criminal charges and potentially an unlimited fine.

BBC governors were briefed on the 280mph (450kmh) accident yesterday by Mark Thompson, its Director-General. The corporation has opened an internal inquiry into the crash.

Family and friends of Hammond, including his Top Gear co-presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May, spent yesterday at his bedside at Leeds General Infirmary. The married father of two, who was flown to the hospital by air ambulance after the crash at Elvington, a North Yorkshire airfield, was in a serious but stable condition in the intensive care unit.

Doctors said that he had suffered “a significant brain injury” that was giving cause for concern. But they were “reasonably optimistic that he will make a good recovery”.

Hammond was said to have been in an euphoric state immediately before his final run of the day in Vampire. The car already holds the British speed record of 300.3 mph, set six years ago at the same airfield.

Last night Clarkson disclosed that he had made Hammond smile by calling him “a crap driver”. He told The Sun: “He was lying peacefully with a black eye but didn’t react so I tried something else. “I said, ‘The reason you’re here is because you’re a crap driver’. He then smiled at me. It was an amazing moment, very moving.”

Clarkson, who talked to Hammond for an hour, said that his co-host had been a “very lucky boy”.

Hammond’s smile had “convinced me he will live”, he said. The presenter had completed several runs along a 1.8-mile stretch of the runway in the vehicle, which can accelerate from 0mph to 272mph in six seconds. He had covered half a mile of his final run and had just switched on the after- burner to increase the car’s power when — at an estimated speed of 280mph — it suddenly veered off course and careered off the runway.

The car sped into a grass strip where it flipped over and became embedded upside down in the ground, 200 yards from the runway. Parts of the vehicle’s bodywork, including the nose cone, were ripped off, leaving debris strewn across the airfield and Hammond — dressed in fireproof overalls, a balaclava and helmet — trapped inside.

Earlier in the day Hammond had been complaining about how tightly he was strapped into the car by its 3in-wide seat belts.

Malcolm Pittwood, the team manager of Primetime Landspeed Engineering, which owns Vampire, said: “Richard was euphoric. He was gradually increasing speeds to ones he had not attained in any super car, getting faster each time.”

It emerged yesterday that James May had been due to film the jet-car piece but swapped with Hammond several weeks ago, apparently because of diary clashes.

Experts have suggested that the crash may have been caused by driver error, mechanical failure or a sudden gust of wind across the airfield during the car’s final run.

Superintendent Martin Deacon, of North Yorkshire Police, said that the organisers of the high-speed challenge should have done a full risk assessment before filming began.

The wreckage of the vehicle was moved to a secret location yesterday for examination. Computer equipment used to time the car has also been taken away for investigation.

Keith King, of the Health and Safety Executive, said that the joint inquiry would look in detail at the BBC’s preparation and planning for Wednesday’s event. “One would expect the BBC to have organisational arrangements and risk assessments for dealing with production-related activity,” he said.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 the BBC has a duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of its employees. Employers are required to undertake risk assessments.

Broadcastnow, a website for the industry, said it had been told by a source who works on Top Gear that some crew members had health and safety concerns about the show that they planned to raise at a production meeting yesterday.But a BBC spokesman said: “If people were going to raise health and safety issues at this meeting it is the first we have heard of it.”

The BBC refused to comment on how much training Hammond had been given. “The circumstances of this accident will be fully investigated by the BBC and we will be fully co-operating with any investigation by the police and the Health and Safety Executive,” a spokesman said.

Others likely to come under investigation are Primetime, the owner of the car, and Elvington Park Ltd, the company that owns and let the runway to the BBC crew. Vampire and its sister car, Split Second, are for sale and Primetime hoped to use the Hammond film, which was to be shown in the next series of Top Gear, as a shop window for the vehicles.

In 1999, MPs claimed the series was “obsessed with acceleration and speed”.

Clarkson paid tribute to Hammond after visiting him in hospital. “I would just like to say how heartened Richard will be when I tell him just how many motorists on my way here wound down their windows to say they were rooting for him,” he said.

Richard Hammond - and the damaged Vampire

Hammond 'lucky to be alive'

"Fortunate to be alive" is how one police officer described Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond yesterday after examining the crash site at Elvington airfield.

Aerial pictures show just how far the rocket-powered Vampire travelled before it flipped over onto its roof and came to a halt with such force that it was partially embedded in the ground. Skid marks show how Britain's fastest car, possibly travelling up to 300mph, veered to the right before leaving the tracks, making deep ruts in the earth as Hammond frantically tried to slow the car by releasing its parachute.

At one point the tyre marks disappear, probably as the Vampire leapt into mid-air before crashing back down to earth.

300.3mph Vampire Britain's fastest car

THE jet-powered Vampire car had an impressive record before this week's tragic events.
In 2000 it was crowned Britain's fastest car, shattering the UK land speed record of 269mph by clocking an incredible 300.3mph on the very same Elvington track used by BBC presenter Richard Hammond.

With a dizzying acceleration of 0-272mph in six seconds, and a theoretical top speed of 370mph, it's not hard to see why the Top Gear team chose the 30ft long Vampire for their latest daredevil stunt.

Powered by a Rolls Royce Orpheus 10,000 horse power engine, usually reserved for the RAF's Red Arrows jets, the Vampire is a motoring enthusiast's fantasy.

David Tremayne, a speed record historian, said even at speeds of around 300mph, Mr Hammond would not have felt as if he was travelling particularly fast because he was in an open airfield.

"The trouble with these things is that if you are on top of your game, you tend to run in slow motion. But whenever something goes wrong, you soon realise how quickly you are going," he said.

The car has not been without its problems of late.
In July the team behind the Vampire, Primetime Land Speed Engineering, decided they wanted to push the boundaries even further, and asked the man responsible for smashing the 300mph barrier to attempt to break his record one more time.

Former RAF engineer Colin Fallows, 54, who holds the current British land speed record said: "It's a brilliant feeling going at that speed. It's the ultimate ride."

BATTLE TO BREAK LAND SPEED RECORD - 7 July 2006

Mark Newby hopes to break Colin Fallow's record

SCREEN ACCIDENTS

• On November 13, 1986, Michael Lush was killed during his first rehearsal for a live stunt on Noel Edmonds’s The Late, Late Breakfast Show. The stunt, “Hang 'em High”, involved bungee-jumping from an exploding box suspended from a 120ft crane. The clip attaching his rope to the crane sprang loose during the jump and he died instantly of multiple injuries. The BBC show was scrapped on November 15 after Edmonds resigned.

• Janet Ellis, the former Blue Peter presenter, broke her pelvis during a practice parachute jump for the show in 1985.

• Owen Hart, a World Wrestling Federation wrestler, died after falling from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City on May 23, 1999. It is believed that while Hart was about to enter from the roof his costume got caught in rigging wires. He fell more than 50ft, landing in the ring. He died of critical shock trauma.

• Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray barb to the heart this month. He had been filming on a remote reef off the northeast coast of Australia when he died. Irwin had earned a reputation as a risk-taker, triggering uproar when he held his baby in one arm while feeding crocodiles inside a zoo pen.

• Brandon Lee, son of the late martial arts expert Bruce Lee, was shot dead on the set of the film The Crow by a gun supposed to fire blanks.

• During the filming of Jackass — The Movie, Mat Hoffman, Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville all suffered serious injuries. Hoffman broke his wrist when he fell off his bike, Knoxville broke his arm when his golf cart flipped over and Steve-O developed a serious infection when he fell into a contaminated river.