A pilot and passenger were feared killed today when their light aircraft crashed onto a busy railway line between Rugeley and Stafford disrupting services carrying passengers home from the holiday break.

The aircraft involved in the crash is believed to be a Piper Cherokee registered to a 59-year-old man from Walsall in the West Midlands. It is believed to have struck overhead power cables and crashed into a field between two branches of the track on the outskirts of Little Haywood, near Stafford, shortly before noon.

Derek Higgott, 49, an eye witness, described how he was working in his back garden when he saw the aircraft turn and plummet "straight down like a stunt plane".

He said: "There was a huge thud and black smoke. You could feel the vibration from it and a huge flock of birds all took off".

Emergency rescue services arrived to find the wreckage confined to a small area at Colwich Junction beside the West Coast Main Line. A police spokesman said that there were no survivors, and potentially two fatalities.

Kath Wylie, 52, who lives in Colwich, near Rugeley, described how she heard a loud pitched whirring sound just moments before an "almighty crash". "The house shook," she said. She ran outside to see a billowing plume of smoke.

Janet Hemmings, from Crewe, who was visiting her sister at the time, said: "We just heard a terrible noise. It was just too low to believe it sounded normal.

"Then my husband started shouting 'I can see it coming down' and we ran into the garden and saw something just dropped from the sky.

"There was a big plume of black smoke and you could see the power cables to the railway line had actually snapped where it had obviously landed".

The accident brought severe disruption to rail passengers travelling on Virgin Trains between London Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool and Glasgow.

Around 400 passengers on two Virgin trains were left stranded on the tracks without power for more than 2 hours. They were eventually retrieved when a diesel locomotive was sent to take them back to Stafford.

Thousands of passengers — many making their journeys home at the end of the festive holiday — were delayed. A spokesman for Virgin said that by mid-afternoon trains that usually run on this stretch of the line were being diverted via Birmingham and Wolverhampton adding around 60 minutes to their journey times.

London Midland, which runs trains from Birmingham to Liverpool, and from Crew to London Euston, suspended all services in the area. Replacement buses carried passengers between Crewe and Rugby, and Wolverhampton and Crewe. A spokesman for the company said that disruption could carry on into Saturday.

British Transport Police began an immediate investigation into the fatal crash.

Debris fell within a sharply confined space. Firemen extinguished the fire with dry powder before police and rail network workers were able to inspect the damage to the overhead cables.

A spokesman for Network Rail said that they were awaiting clearance before they could start repairing the site.

A spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance Service said that paramedics were at the scene within three minutes but there was little they could do.

Meanwhile, Virgin passengers were told that they could use their tickets to travel with rival operators or postpone their journeys until Saturday.

Phil McFarlane, area commander from Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: "We sent quite a large resource because at a plane crash we're not sure what could be involved. It is not too far from the road so we were able to locate the site easily."

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