Pilot John Gibbons, 74, has described the moment the propeller stopped on the Tiger Moth he was flying and the plane began hurtling towards the ground.

After coolly making a crash-landing in a field of crops on Friday, Mr Gibbons and his passenger walked out of the plane with hardly a scratch.

The next day, Mr Gibbons was flying again and even did a loop overhead to show he had not lost his nerve.

Freelance flying instructor Mr Gibbons was practising his aerobatic moves in the Forties plane after taking off from Goodwood air field.

As he was attempting a stall turn at about 1,500ft - a complicated move when the plane moves vertically up through the air and is turned upside down - disaster struck.

Mr Gibbons, who was in the Army Glider Pilot Regiment in 1945, said: "The engine stopped and the propeller became stationary and we went into a glide. It is a very safe aircraft and glided perfectly well without an engine. I saw what looked like a lovely green field but when I got down it was wheat growing up to the waist.

"As I rounded out to land at the level of crops the wheels hit the crops like a brick, they just stopped dead and we flipped over. It is amazing how strong those crops are."

A police helicopter, fire crews and heavy rescue tender were called to the field in Old Park Lane, Fishbourne, on Friday. They discovered the plane lying upside down in the crops and the pilot and passenger unharmed.

Mr Gibbons, from Chichester, said the experience has not put him off flying although he admitted to needing a "couple of gins" afterwards.

He said: "It was quite exciting. I am not going to need counselling or anything like that. You are too busy trying to get the thing on the ground to worry. The passenger was very good, very calm.

"It was an experience, a new aspect of flying, but I won't be making a habit out of it. My wife Vera says I am a silly old sod."

The Tiger Moth belonged to a friend. Mr Gibbons said it was hard to say how the accident had happened.

Air crash investigators did not attend and authorised the removal of the plane by its owner.