A RED Arrows pilot has died after his plane crashed minutes after thrilling crowds in a display at Bournemouth Air Festival.

He has been named as 33-year-old Jon Egging, who joined the team this year as Red Four.

The former Southampton University student, who had supported troops in Afghanistan, was married to Emma and lived in Rutland.

His plane came down on a riverbank at Throop as the aerobatic display team headed back to Bournemouth Airport.

A military investigation is underway at the scene of the tragedy and the Red Arrows have been grounded.

Eye witnesses reported dog walkers attempting to help pull the pilot from the river.

The incident happened after a successful display at the Bournemouth Air Festival.

It is thought the Arrows had been performing a final low-level manouevre when the accident happened within sight of the airport. Witnesses saw the plane perform an arc and fail to recover.

Eye-witness Liz Howard said she had been watching the display from Bournemouth Airport. She saw eight of the nine aircraft land and then saw a plume of smoke over a field near the airport.

"It's terrible," she said. Radio enthusiast Malcolm MacIntyre, 37, from Wallisdown, had heard the Red Arrows’ radio conversations before the crash.

“I picked up some communications from the Red Arrows letting the approach system know that they were 20 miles out,” he said.

“Another aircraft was hoping to land and managed to do so.

“Then the Red Arrows called to land by the tower and about a minute later, about 1.50pm, whoever made the Red Arrows communication, I’m guessing the lead pilot, said: '“Are we clear to land?'

“The answer came through, 'Yes'.

“The tower gave him the wind direction and then a few seconds later the Red Arrows pilot said ‘Are you aware of the Mayday?’

“The tower said “Yes, we are, somebody is dealing with that’.”

He heard a pilot saying he had spotted “wreckage next to the water”.

He added: “I am completely shocked. I didn’t know what to do. It was pretty scary. It’s bad news for the Red Arrows and for Bournemouth.”

Martyn Dear from Queens Park was with a crowd at the end of the runway watching the Arrows land.

He said he was busy taking photos when he had the feeling that not all the planes had landed.

The next thing he knew, fire engines and other emergency vehicles were arriving on the scene.

One onlooker told how two young men stripped off and dived into the river to drag the Red Arrows pilot out.

The man, who asked not to be named, was at Throop Mill with two friends when the plane “peeled off” and disappeared behind some trees.

Walking towards the scene, they met an eyewitness. He told the Daily Echo: “The plane had hit the ground on one side of the river, then bounced, flipped and spun a couple of hundred metres.

“The major part of the wreckage landed right on the side of the river close to the waterworks.

“A Sea King helicopter came searching the area and we pointed towards where the wreckage was.”

The area is popular with dog walkers and so a number of people were around to join the search for the pilot.

Eye-witness Shaun Spencer Perkins, manager of Poole Stadium, who was on a country walk with his family, said: “We were walking Honey, our mother-in-law’s dog.

“I heard a whoosh sound behind me and I looked backwards and saw a Red Arrow flying just feet above the ground.

“We’d seen one come over quite low earlier on, as part of the show, but it was obvious this one was crashing.

“I knew it, I shouted to the family. It came, went passed us across the field, crashed into the riverbank and burst into hundreds of pieces.

“The first thing I looked for was a parachute coming down. It was such a clear day but I saw absolutely nothing.

“Very quickly we ran in the crash site direction, looking to see if we could see a pilot. I thought maybe there could have been other walkers injured.

“We passed a few people walking in the area where the plane came down just before.

“There were lots of pieces of debris and a lot of aviation fuel.

“About 100 metres from the final resting place of the plane, in the river, there was the tail section to the plane, bits of the cockpit glass, a wheel, parts of the side of the plane, the undercarriage.

“There was a big hole in the ground which must have been three feet deep.

“Right across the grass, about 20ft wide, was what looked like burnt grass. It took out a lot of fencing. There was a definite debris field leading up to the embankment.

“We were the second or third people on the scene. On the opposite side of the river there were two guys who ventured into the water.

“We couldn’t find the cockpit, we assumed it was under water. We ran back across the field and shouted out for the pilot, as we thought he may have ejected into the trees.

“I phoned the fire brigade as soon as I saw it. I’m pretty shaken to be honest.”

Eye witness Glenn Everest – on holiday from East Sussex – told the Daily Echo: “We watched them come into land and instead of simply landing they put their smoke on to do a bit of a show for the people at the airport.

“The three edge ones peeled off and the middle one, which looked incredibly low, just disappeared out of sight.

“Then the alarms at the airport went off and we saw fire engines racing off.”

Chief Inspector Steve White, of Dorset Police, said: "We can confirm that at 1.48pm today at the conclusion of the Red Arrows display the flight aircraft returned to Bournemouth International airport.

"On approach to the airport one aircraft crashed into a field near Throop Mill, Bournemouth.

"The aircraft came to rest on the bank of the River Stour."

Police, firefighters, the ambulance service, plus the coastguard's search and rescue helicopter and Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance were all on their way immediately, he said.

Inspector White added: "Sadly the pilot, who had been thrown from the aircraft, was pronounced dead at the scene.

"Our deepest condolences go to the pilot's family and the Red Arrows team."

A police cordon will remain in place while the Ministry of Defence's Air Accident Investigation Branch continues its investigation, he added.

More details to follow.

Picture on homepage by Glenn Everest.