SPEED probably led to the death of 18-year-old Lancashire soldier Andrew Hart when his car spun into the path of an oncoming lorry between Salisbury and Andover, an inquest heard.

The hearing was told the soldier lost control of his Ford Orion on a bend on a narrow, twisting road at Cholderton and died from head and chest injuries after being airlifted to hospital last December.

Mr Hart, serving with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers at Tidworth on Salisbury Plain, came from Pennine Way, Brierfield, Nelson.

Lorry driver, James Sims, of Salisbury, told coroner Nigel Brookes he saw Mr Hart frantically trying to counteract the slide moments before the car smashed into the front of him.

The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Front seat passenger in the car, fellow soldier with 3 Field Workshops, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers at Tidworth, Matthew Streets, said he remembered them facing the way they had come at one stage.

Mr Streets told how he looked up when they "lost the back end". Then they spun round in the road hitting the lorry.

Police accident investigator PC Stephen Cox said the crash was "due to the Orion car driver entering a bend at a speed too great for him to maintain control".

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.