A British pilot hailed as “an aviation entrepreneur” was killed when his prototype plane crashed during take-off on a test flight in Malaysia today.

Michael Robert Dacre, 53, was flying a Jetpod aircraft, developed his own UK-based company AVCEN, when the crash happened an airstrip in Taiping, Malaysian.

The plane, which was being tried out at Tekah airstrip near the northern town, is being developed to take off and land in short distances and cruise at low levels at 500km-per-hour.

It would need only 125 meters to take-off or land, allowing runways to be constructed close to the centre of major cities, and would be quiet enough to not be noticeable above city traffic.

Mr Dacre had managed to reach a height of 200 metres, but the aircraft then plummeted to the ground and burst into flames, said Mohd Sobri Abdullah, a Taiping Fire and Rescue senior operations officer.

One idea for the aircraft was for commuters to use them as flying taxis, taking them to work instead of waiting for a street cab.

Avcen say Jetpods would enable quick, quiet and cheap travel to and from major cities and would be able to travel the 24 miles from Woking, Surrey, to central London in just four minutes.

And because it could make so many trips, fares for a journey from Heathrow to central London could cost about £40 or £50.

In an interview a few years ago Mr Dacre said: “We see it as very much as a ‘park and fly’ concept. You drive to a pick-up site, get on the aircraft, and off you go.

“But people shouldn’t think that these things are going to be whizzing around crashing into each other. They’ll be following set routes.

“Jetpods are meant to be a workhorse, a taxi cab in the air, for on-demand free-roaming traffic.

“We know that cities like Moscow, Tokyo and New York are crying out for something like this, and there’s nothing remotely like it around at the moment.”

Source: TimesOnline