Alan Honeyborne, the South Africanpilot whose plane crashed in the central China province of Hunan last Friday, knew what was happening and told his friend he was "falling down" before the accident.

Honeyborne told his friend Ricky de Agrela before the air crash that his plane had lost one wing and was rapidly falling down.

Agrela was piloting another light plane, some 100 meters ahead of Honeyborne, when he heard those last words from his friend.

The two were on a 50-country flying trip, a global charity mission financed by the South African government as part of the activities to mark the 10th anniversary of South Africa's abolishment of apartheid, Agrela said.

The two planes took off from the southern city of Guilin Fridaymorning and were headed for Changsha. Bad weather forced the pilots to divert to Wuhan, capital of the central Hubei Province, but Honeyborne's plane crashed into Dongting Lake in the neighboring Hunan Province before it arrived.

Before they took off, Agrela said they had agreed that in case one of the planes had an accident, the other pilot should immediately use the airborne global positioning system to help locate the crashed plane and then make an emergency landing in thenearest, safest place possible.

Agrela said he helped locate Honeyborne's plane in time, but the subsequent emergency landing in Wuhan took nearly two hours because of the bad weather.

Honeyborne's body was found in the lake close to Miluo City at around 6:30 p.m.

Agrela said he had to cancel the travel plan and go back to hiscountry and his plane in Wuhan would be shipped back to South Africa after disassembling.