A GLIDER pilot had a miraculous escape after her aircraft hit a house and a tree before crashing into a garden.

The 35-year-old Thame woman, who has not yet been named, was in intensive care at Wycombe Hospital yesterday, in a critical but stable condition.

The aircraft crashed in Clay Lane, Booker, near Wycombe Air Park, at 3pm on Wednesday.

Householder Vivian Buckland, 61, of Clay Lane, said: "I thought the tree had fallen on my roof and then I stood up and saw the glider wrapped around the tree.

"I phoned 999 and then called out to her that the ambulance was on its way.

"It petrified me to start off with. It was the noise more than anything that frightened me to death."

She said she heard the pilot murmuring before emergency services arrived.

Police and air accident investigators are now trying to establish the cause of the accident.

A police spokesman said: "The British Gliding Association is also involved in the investigation.

"It is believed the glider was coming in to land at Booker airfield, where it first clipped the roof of the house before hitting the tree."

A spokesman for Booker Gliding Club confirmed that one experienced pilot was involved in the accident and the cause was still under investigation.

He said: "We are grateful to the emergency services, who were in attendance within minutes. The glider was substantially damaged."

An ambulance spokesman said the woman was given first aid at the scene and taken by ambulance to Wycombe Hospital.

A spokesman for the Air Accident Investigation Branch said it would not comment until publication of the final report. PIC - The crash scene: The remains of the glider are cordoned off in the garden in Booker

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.