A “wrong turn at the right time” may have saved the life of Christopher Mifsud as a jet from the Shoreham air show smashed into the A47 and turned into a fireball, leaving at least 11 dead in its wake.

“I was not using a map and I took a wrong turn, delaying my arrival at Shoreham by a few minutes,” the 48-year-old told this newspaper on his return from the UK.

He witnessed the fireball but luckily it was from about a kilometre away instead of too close for comfort on the A47.

On Saturday, a 1950s Hawker Hunter jet fell to the ground and hit the busy road after failing to pull out of a loop manoeuvre. The disaster was captured on video and broadcast around the world.

‘I took a wrong turn at the right time’

Mr Mifsud, a photojournalist for The Aviation Magazine, was on his way to Shoreham to take some pictures. He visits air shows in the UK at least twice a year and this would have been his fourth visit to Shoreham.

Work continues yesterday on the A27 at Shoreham in West Sussex in the search for further victims of the air disaster. Photo: PA Wire

Just before entering a tunnel approaching the site from the east, he spotted the landmark Lancing College Chapel and, in the air, what was probably the Hawker Hunter.

“As soon as I emerged from the tunnel I saw the fireball and the black plume of smoke. The airshow includes a stunt by a World War II aircraft, along with a pyrotechnic display, so I was still unsure whether this was part of the show or an accident.

“However, the jet I had spotted before was no longer flying and there was a thick, black cloud of smoke and a series of small explosions… It was a very ugly fire.”

He called an English friend of his who confirmed the scene he had just witnessed was indeed a jet crashing.

It was a very ugly fire

Still reeling from the realisation that he had taken that wrong turn at just the right moment, it took him some four hours to get back to his accommodation because of the traffic diversions.

Yesterday, Sussex police said the death toll from the air disaster was “increasingly likely” to be set at 11. The removal of the jet from the site has uncovered no further evidence of victims. On Monday it had been suggested the death toll could rise as high as 20.

Four men have been named as among those killed, and two more have been identified as missing. The coroner warned that identifying the victims would be a “slow and painstaking operation”.

This was not the first time that Mr Mifsud witnessed an airshow accident. In July of 2011, at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire, a P-51 Mustang and a Douglas A-1 Skyraider were involved in a mid-air collision.

He also saw the collision off Marsamxett of two planes during the Aero GP show in 2006, which killed a pilot.

Still, the incidents will not put him off airshows. Aircraft and aviation are his passion. He has been hooked since his uncle, who was in the Royal Air Force, took him to an airshow aged seven and he climbed into the cockpit of Lightning and Phantom jets.