RNLI releases new rescue clip of pilots forced to ditch plane eight miles out to sea

01:16Two pilots who crashed their light aircraft into the English Channel off the coast of Jersey were rescued by Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers on Thursday, 3 November. The pair were undergoing refresher training when their engine lost power, forcing them to ditch the plane. Three Jersey RNLI lifeboats battled through 2-3m swells, rain and winds of up to 35mph to reach the pilots, who escaped the sinking plane and climbed inside a liferaft with a personal locator beacon. ‘If the RNLI hadn’t rescued us it would have been a different story,’ pilot Paul Clifford said. Sign up for our newsletters.