MORE than 100 training aircraft built in North Yorkshire are being scrapped by the US Air Force nine years after they were grounded following fatal crashes.

The T-3A Firefly represented a multi-million pound export coup for the Kirkbymoorside-based Slingsby Advanced Composites - which has defended the record of the aircraft - when it sold 113 examples to its biggest single overseas customer in 1994.

The remaining fleet was grounded in 1997 after three Fireflies were lost in crashes involving the deaths of instructor pilots and their students based at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

This led to an advanced pilot screening programme being cancelled and, although an operational evaluation in 2002 concluded that the single-engined Firefly was airworthy and safe, it was never flown again by the USAF.

The American magazine Time, which criticised the Firefly's safety record during a special investigation following the three deaths, has branded the plane "high flying junk" after the USAF announced that a metal recycling company is expected to have completed scrapping of the 110 remaining planes by Monday.

The USAF is reported to have found that it is not viable to make the stored machines serviceable for sale on the second-hand market because they have had no maintenance. The dismantling contract is worth £6.4m and the scrap metal value will be used to offset disposal costs.

Ryedale MP John Greenway, whose constituency includes the Slingsby factory, told the House of Commons in 1997 that three years earlier he and the company had suggested to then Defence Minister Roger Freeman that the Firefly might be a suitable candidate to replace the ageing Bulldog trainer in the RAF.

The Bulldog was used by university air squadrons at stations including Leeming but was eventually replaced by the German-built Grob Tutor.

In USAF service, the two-seat T-3A was meant to weed out poor pilots more effectively by exposing them to military-style traffic patterns, aerobatics and spins, but it was surrounded by controversy with reports of engine failures, poor brakes and expensive modifications being made in an attempt to overcome mechanical problems.

Slingsby made its name as a manufacturer of gliders and the Firefly, an adaptation of a French design, was its first powered aircraft in 1982. A total of 234 were sold to more than a dozen countries for military and civilian use.

Slingsby sales director Steven Boyd said each of the three fatal USAF crashes had involved pilot error. A review of the T-3A had involved modifications to fuel and oil systems but he was not aware of brake problems.

"The Firefly is used by the Army, the Royal Navy and private training schools and operators love it. As far as I am aware there has not been a single fatality. There was a crash but the people got out safely. The aircraft would not have a certificate of airworthiness if it was not safe."

He said of the USAF Fireflies: "It is disappointing that such a lovely little aircraft cannot find a home with many private individuals."