School stunned by pupils' plane tragedy

The head teacher of Marlwood School in Alveston, near Thornbury, where plane tragedy teenagers Ayman Booz and Charlie Froud were pupils, said they were popular students who were "full of life and fun".

Long-time friends, the 14-year-old boys died with Ayman's parents, Sharif and Margaret Booz, when the light aircraft they were travelling in crashed on a remote mountain in Ireland at the weekend. They had taken off from Gloucestershire Airport on Saturday for a trip to Mrs Booz's home town of Newbridge, County Kildare.

But the plane crashed into the Wicklow mountains just 20 miles from their destination.

Mr Booz, who had been flying the plane, his wife, son and Charlie were all killed, leaving their families and friends devastated and people in their home villages of Almondsbury and Over in South Gloucestershire mourning their loss.

Marlwood School in Alveston, near Thornbury, is currently closed for the holidays.

But head teacher Keith Geary said staff were making plans to offer help to all students when they come back for the new term next week.

He also paid tribute to the boys and to Mrs Booz, who was also well known within the school as she had been a member of its parent teacher association (PTA).

Mr Geary said: "Marlwood pupils and staff who have heard about the death of Charlie Froud and Ayman Booz, as well as members of Ayman's family, are shocked and saddened by all their deaths.

"Our first thoughts are with their families, to whom we send our condolences.

"Ayman and Charlie were such good friends because they were both lively, active and cheerful people, full of life and fun. They were very well liked by their peers and will be very much missed by pupils and staff."

The Booz family's home is in Lower Almondsbury, while Charlie lived in the nearby village of Over.

Mr and Mrs Booz have another son, Sammi, 20, an architecture student at Nottingham University.

Post mortem examinations on the four victims were due to be completed at Naas General Hospital while the aircraft, a Piper PA-28 single-engine plane, is undergoing close examination by air accident investigators.

It was removed from the crash scene by helicopter and taken to Gormanston in County Meath, where experts will try to establish the cause of the accident, which happened in poor weather conditions.

They hope to issue a preliminary report into the cause of the crash by the end of November, with a full report to follow later in the year.

Mr Booz ran his own Miller House Management property letting business in Clifton and flying was his passion.

The party took off on Saturday morning at 10am and were due to land at Kilrush airfield in County Kildare just after 12.30pm. The last radar sighting was when the plane was over the Wicklow mountains, about 20 miles from Kilrush, according to the Irish Aviation Authority.

The alarm was raised at 6pm when a worried relative contacted the airfield after failing to get a response from a phone call to Mr Booz.

Marlwood School in Alveston, near Thornbury, is currently closed for the holidays.