A colourful former Conservative MEP has been killed in a plane crash in Mozambique after the small plane he was travelling in lost control and crashed onto a beach.

Paul Howell, 57, avoided death 27 years ago after he crawled from a plane wreck that left his co-pilot paralysed. It was said that he vowed never to fly again.

Mr Howell had recently remarried and was in southern Africa with his wife Ayesha, who was not on the plane. They have a one-year-old son, Zack.

The plane crashed near Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique, killing six passengers on board on Saturday. The director of Beira International Airport, Antonio Tito, said that the pilot had lost contact with the airport tower. It is also thought that the plane had run out of fuel before it crashed.

The long-serving MEP and father of three was looking at agricultural business interests in Mozambique and South Africa before the accident. Since he lost his seat in Strasbourg in 1994, he had worked as a farmer in Norfolk.

Mr Howell was the youngest ever MEP when he went to work in Strasbourg in 1979 at the age of 29. In the 1970s he had served as a secretary to the Conservative shadow cabinet and as a party researcher and speechwriter. In 1992 he was the first MEP to visit Chernobyl after the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, and fought for the parliament to ban the imports of sea pelts after witnessing the annual cull in Canada.

Henry Bellingham, MP for North West Norfolk, said: "It is a grave loss for Norfolk. Paul was an outstanding MEP and Norfolk's champion in Europe."

In 1981 Mr Howell, who flew at Oxford, was in a serious crash when the two-seater plane he was flying crashed into a field. He needed 13 operations and suffered damaged vocal chords. His co-pilot, Chris Gurney, was left wheelchair bound.

Friends of Mr Howell paid tribute to him last night. Martin Buckingham, a close friend and best man at his wedding last year, said: "He had an astonishing sense of adventure and fun."

Another friend, Paul Whittome, said: "He was a completely larger-than-life character and very controversial ... Everything that went with Paul was an adventure. We got arrested scuba diving by a naval frigate once".

Mr Howell was the son of the former North Norfolk Conservative MP Sir Ralph Howell, who died earlier this year.

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