A man spoke yesterday of the moment rescuers searching for a Red Arrows pilot minutes after his plane had crashed found him dead in a river.

Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging’s Hawk T1 aircraft plunged to the ground near Bournemouth Airport in Dorset on Saturday, partly ending up in the River Stour after completing a display over the town’s seafront.

He was discovered with his parachute open but apparently not in his ejection seat.

John Dugdale did not hear the crash but was soon at the scene when a rescue helicopter starting hovering above.

“Somebody ran past me saying ‘one of the reds has gone down’. I just thought this is not happening,” Mr Dugdale said.

“I ran over and there was a small group of people and you could see part of the wreckage of the aircraft on the riverbank.

“At least one of the group had entered the water and was looking in the river for the pilot.

“One then shouted out he could see a parachute and then he shouted out he had got him (the pilot) and someone said, ‘is he dead?’ and the man in the water replied ‘yes’.

“There was a lot of bushes on the bank and he was found just away from me in a bend of the river. I did not see him.” Mr Dugdale said he thought the ejection seat was found away from the body. He went on: “Soon there were emergency services everywhere and the helicopter landed and we began to be cleared away.

“I went straight back home because it was extremely upsetting.

“I had gone down to watch the display because I am a member of the Red Arrows Association and a fan. It was such a shame that his wife was at the display.”

Tributes were yesterday paid to Flt Lt Egging, who is said to have guided the plane away from houses and people before it smashed into a field and came to a standstill with its nose in the river near the village of Throop. His wife, Emma Egging, said she was “the proudest I’ve ever been” after watching his performance in the skies above the seaside resort. Colleagues described the 33-year-old as a “true team player” and “gifted aviator”.

Dr Egging said yesterday: “Jon was everything to those that knew him, and he was the best friend and husband I could ever have wished for.

“I know that he would have wanted me to say something from the heart at this time. “There was nothing bad about Jon. He loved his job and was an exemplary pilot.

Dazzling history of the aerobatics team

The Red Arrows first started performing their gravity-defying aerobatic displays in 1965 after the RAF combined its many regionalised teams.

Since then, they have dazzled audiences around the world in well over 4,000 displays in more than 50 countries.

Formally known as The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team (RAFAT), the team’s Red Arrows nickname was chosen as a combination of two previous teams, the Black Arrows and the Red Pelicans.

The team is now based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, but its original home was at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

During its inaugural season, the team used seven aircraft in the 65 displays across Europe.

Their first display with the trademark nine planes was in July 1966 for the Duke of Edinburgh, but it was not until 1968 that the team size was officially increased to nine.

From then on, they became famous for their precise “Diamond 9” formation.

The Red Arrows use the British Aerospace Hawk T1 aircraft, which they first flew for the 1980 display season.

The dual control Hawk T1 is powered by a Rolls-Royce Adour engine that produces 5,200lbs of thrust, and it can reach a supersonic top speed of Mach 1.2 (913mph).

It has a maximum altitude of 48,000ft and fuel capacity gives a range of 1,000 nautical miles (1,151 miles). The famous coloured smoke is generated by a system that pumps diesel mixed with dye into the jet exhaust to produce the colourful vapour trails.

They are mainly used for flight safety reasons so the pilots can judge wind speed and direction whilst performing their displays, but the visual effects look spectacular to observers on the ground.

Each aircraft can carry enough diesel and dye to create five minutes of white smoke, one minute of red and one minute of blue during the display.