A pilot crashed his plane after his satnav directed him to an airfield which does not exist.

The 53-year-old was to flying from Angus to Aberdeenshire with the intention of landing at a strip listed on his Garmin GPS.

When he arrived at the location near Alford he could not see where to land and lost control after circling the area three times at low altitude.

His single-engine Maule MX plummeted to the ground, hit a wall and flipped over.

The pilot and his passenger escaped unharmed from the crash on June 23 last year but the plane was destroyed.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch carried out an inquiry and concluded: "The airfield that the pilot was attempting to locate does not appear to exist."

It said recent air crashes in the US show have shown that low-altitude flight creates a high risk of an accident happening.