BOURNEMOUTH Air Festival favourite, the Sea Vixen, is being assessed for damage after it was forced to make an emergency landing at the weekend.

The pilot had a lucky escape after the last remaining Sea Vixen, known as the Foxy Lady, made a "belly-landing" on return to its base at Yeovilton in Somerset on Saturday.

Sea Vixen was kept and maintained at Hurn for more than a decade before it was donated to the Fly Navy Heritage Trust.

Under the stewardship of local businessman Julian Jones, it held the honour of being the fastest privately-owned aircraft in Europe.

Mr Jones presented the historic aircraft to Rear Admiral Russ Harding and Commodore Jock Alexander in September 2014.

Julian Jones who lives in Poole told the Echo: "I understand that the Sea Vixen has a strong following locally. I am pleased to confirm that the pilot was able to make a controlled gear up landing.

"Every effort will be made to quickly assess the damage and if possible return the aircraft to the skies."

Mr Jones added: "Everything comes in threes. We had an engine disintegration from runway, a gear collapse and now a gear up landing, but they are strong aircraft.

"The pilot landed the aircraft with damage limitation in mind. The drop tanks may have proved a useful pair of sacrificial skids. We will see what the report brings ."

Scott Dabinett, 32, captured photos of the heart-stopping incident on Saturday, which saw the pilot touchdown without landing gear after flying back from an air show in Cambridgeshire.

He said: "As soon as we saw the pilot was OK we all started breathing again. Everyone was shaking. The emergency guys were on the scene straight away and took control of the situation."

Mr Dabinett said the aircraft had taken off at 4.15pm and they waited one hour and 10 minutes for it to return.

"We then heard radio communications between the tower and the pilot asking for visual of the landing gear.

"The response was your undercarriage is clean, which means it is still up. After several more passes and discussion between pilot and tower and other emergency personnel, it was soon announced that this was going to be a gear-up belly landing.

"The feeling between the few of us standing by was that this does not look good. On the final approach we all crossed our fingers and held our breaths. As soon as she touched the runway the canopy was released and engines were shut down.

He added: "She slid up the runway very smoothly and under control. It was much quieter than I was expecting. Eventually she came to a stop."

The supersonic Sea Vixen first flew in 1951 and is the only airworthy example in the world.

It was the first British two-seat aircraft to break the sound barrier during its operational testing phase in the early 1950s.