{"id":341084,"date":"2026-05-26T20:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=341084"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:41:18","slug":"champion-british-glider-pilot-dies-after-plane-crashes-into-woodland-news-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/champion-british-glider-pilot-dies-after-plane-crashes-into-woodland-news-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Champion British glider pilot dies after plane crashes into woodland | News World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Jon Gatfield crashed near Bergamo yesterday (Picture: FAI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A British glider pilot has died after his aircraft lost altitude and crashed into woodland during a world flying competition in northern Italy.<\/p>\n

Jon Gatfield, 68, crashed on the slopes of Monte Grem in Bergamo, Lombardy, throughout the FAI Sailplane Grand Prix yesterday.<\/p>\n

The race had begun earlier within the day in Varese, near the Swiss border.<\/p>\n

Based on organisers, Jon had been flying alone in his motor glider when it suddenly began losing altitude at around 3.30pm.<\/p>\n

One other pilot collaborating within the race spotted the aircraft descending abnormally and raised the alarm.<\/p>\n

Rescue teams, including firefighters, mountain rescue crews and a helicopter emergency service, reached the crash site inside minutes, but Jon couldn’t be saved.<\/p>\n

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Rescue services found him quickly but weren\u2019t able to avoid wasting him (Picture: Vigili del Fuoco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The experienced British pilot had been competing alongside 15 other glider pilots from across Europe on the international event.<\/p>\n

Reports said he had won the opening race of the competition the day past after completing a 205-kilometre route in only over two hours.<\/p>\n

Pilots were expected to finish the course through the mountains before returning to the airfield near the Swiss border.<\/p>\n

Witnesses mountain climbing near Monte Grem said they initially watched several gliders circling above the mountains before realising something had gone incorrect.<\/p>\n

One hiker said: \u2018I saw it fall and heard the crash.\u2019<\/p>\n

Investigators are actually examining whether the crash can have been attributable to a medical emergency, a technical problem or pilot error.<\/p>\n

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An investigation has been opened into the crash (Picture: Vigili del Fuoco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carabinieri officers from Clusone opened an investigation under the supervision of prosecutor Giulia Angeleri.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s National Agency for Flight Safety also announced it could send inspectors to the scene.<\/p>\n

Competition organisers suspended the remaining races following the tragedy.<\/p>\n

In an announcement, organisers said: \u2018It’s with profound sadness that the FAI Sailplane Grand Prix organisation proclaims the tragic lack of British pilot Jon Gatfield throughout the opening of the thirteenth series in Varese.<\/p>\n

\u2018Despite the rapid and coordinated response, we lost a deeply respected friend and a faithful pilot.\u2019<\/p>\n

Organisers also described Jon as a widely known figure within the international gliding community who had taken part in quite a few European and world competitions through the years.<\/p>\n

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Jon Gatfield crashed near Bergamo yesterday (Picture: FAI) A British glider pilot has died after his aircraft lost altitude and crashed into woodland during a world flying competition in northern Italy. Jon Gatfield, 68, crashed on the slopes of Monte Grem in Bergamo, Lombardy, throughout the FAI Sailplane Grand Prix yesterday. The race had begun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20691],"tags":[2869,1470,7629,5319,45694,395,4336,10449,52162,813],"class_list":["post-341084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-british","tag-champion","tag-crashes","tag-dies","tag-glider","tag-news","tag-pilot","tag-plane","tag-woodland","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[{"message":"The permalink for this post just changed! This could result in 404 errors for your site visitors.","status":"warning","options":{"id":"0a2ae5f84bc2c0423042ed7ec22d2e40","isDismissible":true,"actions":[{"url":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/wp-admin\/admin.php?page=aioseo-redirects","label":"Add Redirect to improve SEO","class":"aioseo-redirects-slug-changed"}]},"allowedContexts":["posts"]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341087,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341084\/revisions\/341087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}