by Ruth Banks

Accident investigators say a missing rivet head may have caused a plane crash that killed five people in Farnborough in March 2008.

An official report into the accident says the missing component could have caused an inadvertent engine shut-down in the private jet.

The eight-seater Cessna Citation 500 burst into flames after crashing just minutes after it took off from Biggin Hill airport on a flight to France.

The pilots had decided to return to the airport, after reporting engine vibration. Minutes later, they reported a ‘major power problem’, and crashed into the side of a house.

Everyone on board was killed, including former motorsport champion David Leslie, and Richard Lloyd, a racing team chief.

The report from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch found that the "rivet head securing the left engine fuel cut-off lever had become detached at some time prior to impact", which could have caused the lever to be moved inadvertently into the fuel cut-off position, causing an engine shut-down.

It added: "If the right engine had previously been shut down as a result of the vibration, the aircraft would then have been left with neither engine running."

The investigators said a single engine relight could have produced enough thrust to prevent impact, but there was evidence that "one engine had not completed its start sequence before an attempt was made to start the other. The effect of doing this would have been to delay the start of both engines.

"Had the pilots been using the manufacturer’s checklist it is possible that they misinterpreted the requirement to only start one engine at a time or did not realise the significance of the need to do so.

"A sense of urgency due to the proximity of the ground or confusion over the problems they were dealing with might equally have led to a deliberate attempt to start the second engine before the first engine had reached idle speed."

The report complained that the "investigation was short of critical information which could have provided further insight and a clearer understanding of the factors leading to the loss of the aircraft" by the lack of a black box flight data recorder.

Planes of this size are not required to carry them, but proposals have been made to make them compulsory.