A pilot went careering into a field when the wheel of his plane snapped off on landing.

Upon landing at Fishburn Airfield in County Durham the 48-year-old plane’s left landing wheel, known as a gear, failed causing the plane to veer off the runway and into a field of crops.

The plane’s left propellor struck the ground and caused damage to the left wing, left door and engine.

Read more: Pilot had to be directed back to airport after mistaking A1 for the runway

According to a report into the incident, which happened on shortly after 9.30am on July 10 last year, the 68-year-old pilot carried out a normal landing and applied the brakes before the landing gear came off.

The report published by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch suggested the problem was caused by ‘metal fatigue’ in the leg.

No one was injured in the incident despite the plane ending up on its side in a field.

The plane is understood to have made more than 2,000 landings, with the manufacturers saying it was ‘probably the highest number of landings of this aircraft type’.

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The pilot had owned the aircraft, a Bede BD-4 light plane, since 1984 and had flown it for more than 1,400 hours.

The manufcacturer no longer makes the same landing gear leg, and it has been redesigned since the plane's 1974 manufacture.

The incident at Fishburn Airfield, near Sedgefield, was the second in the space of a month when another pilot was left with a fractured vertebra when his plane overturned in a corn field.

The separate incident happened on June 21, and the pilot said he believe he “should have closed the throttle and abandoned the take off earlier”.

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