A Bishop Monkton man mounted an emergency rescue mission to save a stranded glider on Saturday when it landed unexpectedly in a field not far from the village.

The glider, which had taken off along with thirty other gliders from Pocklington, lost thermals over the village and looked for a safe place to land. It came down in the field at Richard Taylor’s family farm at Burton Leonard where fortunately the crop had recently been cut.

Then it was Richard and his brother Ian who came to the rescue. They set about pulling the glider to one end of the stubble field with a tractor. With the field being about a mile long, they thought there would be enough space to get the glider airborne again.

The glider pilot rang a colleague who arrived in a crop-spraying single seater plane and proceeded to hook up the stranded glider. Then they set off up the stubble field with the Taylors holding each wing to keep it level until they got going. Then up, up and away they went - with the plane towing the glider safely all the way back to Pocklington.

Thankfully no one was injured and the glider was undamaged. But, as Richard said:- “Not something we normally see or deal with on a Saturday evening!”