The accident that nearly killed Nigel Farage
Farage may be standing as an MP again… but it won't be the biggest challenge he's ever faced after surviving a plane crash
Nigel Farage has announced he will stand as a Reform MP in the upcoming general election in what is the latest drama in his long political career.
The announcement comes after Farage, who is also taking over from Richard Tice as leader of Reform UK, stoked speculation by writing on social media on Monday morning: “I will be making an emergency General Election announcement at 4pm today.”
The former UKIP and Brexit Party leader, who finished third in the most recent series of ITV's 'I'm A Celebrity' last year, has seen his own fair share of real-life drama, including a brush with death when his light aircraft crashed as he campaigned for votes during the 2010 general election.
On the day of the 2010 election, a small plane Farage was flying in crashed after its Ukip promotion banner got entangled in the plane's tail fin.
Farage has now opened up about the crash when questioned by housemates while in the jungle, telling them he was “being an idiot” by flying a pro-Brexit banner.
Recalling his injuries, he said: ”I don’t recall being unconscious, but I do recall the explosion, the plane flipping over, being stuck in there, everything broken… every rib front and back, split sternum, punctured lung… it was bad.”
Farage said he discharged himself from hospital because he “got bored”, adding: ”When bad things happen to you in life you’ve got to make a decision. Have I been unlucky, have I been lucky?”
He previously said the experience had galvanised him, saying: "I think it's made me more 'me' than I was before, to be honest. Even more fatalistic. Even more convinced it's not a dress rehearsal. Even more driven than I was before. And I am driven."
It wasn't the first personal drama Farage had experienced either.
In his early 20s, he was run over in Orpington, Kent, after a night in the pub, suffering severe injuries and was later diagnosed with testicular cancer.
Accounts of the crash have described how Farage, wearing his trademark pinstripe suit, had chartered the plane which was pulling the banner.
But the banner affected the plane, sparking a mayday call as it plummeted towards the ground, crashing at 80mph.
Farage suffered fractured vertebrae and ribs, as well as a fractured sternum, and needed surgery on his spine, while the pilot of the plane was also seriously injured.
Speaking on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2019, Farage admitted: "It's not a great memory" and described going through stages of "denial", followed by a "terror", then a "strange resignation" that he may die.
'Nobody will ever know I survived'
"I did have a vision of what it was going to be like," he said. "I sort of imagined a bang on the head and blackness and that was it - it was almost a premonition of what it might be."
He said after the crash, as he lay in the wreckage, he remembered thinking: "We're covered in fuel... this blimin' thing is going to burn and nobody will ever know I survived the crash."
Farage added that while he considered texting his family, he did not want his messages to "haunt" them if he did die, and also did not want to distract the pilot as he battled to regain control of the plane.
"For once in my life the right thing to do was to sit there and say absolutely nothing," he added.
