A STUDENT pilot has been thrown out of a flying club because he crash landed one of its planes.

Anthony Collins, 48, of Southchurch Road, Southend, was in a Cessna 152 when it ended up nose down on the runway after he misjudged a landing.

The plane, based at Southend Airport, is owned by the Flight Centre. When Mr Collins returned the following weekend, staff refused to let him in.

He claimed: “My flight instructor and six friends were so angry about my treatment they resigned from the Flight Centre and joined Seawing, a flying club next door.”

Dad-of-three Mr Collins, a gas engineer, has been a member of the £80 a year club for more than 18 months.

He was flying solo as part of a £160-an-hour course to gain a private pilot’s licence.

He has passed all the stringent tests needed to apply for a licence and to fly a plane and the club was insured for him to fly.

However, a spokesman for the Flight Centre said it was unlikely Mr Collins’s would be returning. He said: “If you lent your car to a friend and they crashed it, would you lend it to them again?”