A FORMER member of the SAS, Red Devil skydiver and best-selling author plunged more than 4,000ft to his death when he jumped without a parachute from a light aircraft.

'Nish' Bruce, whose body was recovered from a football pitch near Fifeld, Oxfordshire, on Tuesday, was well known in Hereford as a member of the crack SAS regiment.

He gained national acclaim for his 1998 autobiography Freefall, written under the pen name Tom Read, in which he documents his long-term battle with mental illness and his passion for skydiving.

Bruce, who was in his 40s, was travelling in a privately-owned single-engine two-seater Cessna 172, which was piloted by a woman who landed the aircraft safely at nearby RAF Brize Norton.

The plane was flying from France to Northamptonshire when the pilot asked for permission to divert from her route because of ice on the wings, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

Permission was given to land at the RAF base, when the pilot reported "the passenger opened the door and jumped out".

A full-scale investigation is under way.

Before his retirement, he served with the SAS in the Falklands, Central America and Northern Ireland.