July 2, 2004

Air crash man was weapons expert

The pilot of a light aircraft who was killed along with three passengers when his plane came down in a Devon field was a chemical weapons expert.
Dr Paul Norman, 52, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, died when the Cessna 206 crashed shortly after taking off from Dunkeswell Airfield on Sunday.
Dr Norman, a married father-of-two, was chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at Porton Down.
He travelled the world lecturing on the subject of weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Norman's Porton Down colleague Steve Eley said: "Paul was a great deal larger than life, and has left an enormous number of friends, all of whom have lost an irreplaceable part of their lives."
Passengers injured
Dr Norman's hobbies included parachuting, flying and looking after his small collection of old cars.
Richard Smith, 42, and his daughter Claire, 17, from Winkleigh in Devon, also died at the scene of the crash near the village of Beacon.
Parachute instructor and Royal Marine Major Mike Wills, 44, died later in hospital.
The aircraft's other two passengers, 16-year-old Daniel Greening from Kingsteignton, Devon, and a 23-year-old from Taunton, Somerset, are still in hospital.
The flight was organised by the Devon and Somerset Parachute School, which has temporarily suspended its operations.
The crash site was examined by officials from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the wreckage of the aircraft was moved to the organisation's base at Farnborough.