Stunned eyewitnesses spoke of a huge fireball which lit up the sky and shook the ground.

The Korean Air Boeing 747 cargo plane came down next to the two Essex villages of Great and Little Hallingbury, narrowly missing the M11 motorway.

Norman Mead, Great Hallingbury parish chairman, was sitting at home with his wife when he realised something was wrong.

"I heard this very unusual sound. It was a rattling and screaming noise and we rushed out to see what was happening," he said.

"As we got to the back doors there was this colossal ball of fire. We could feel the heat from it from a quarter of a mile away."

He added: "There was a considerable explosion which shook the whole house. It was a rumbling roar kind of explosion."

Mr Mead said the plane crashed "literally yards" from a small group of about seven or eight houses and Marstons Farm.

Police said there were reports of a piece of wing falling into a garden.

Louise Cockburn, 27, a rental sales agent with car firm Avis, was inside the terminal at the time of the accident. She said there was an atmosphere of shock.

"There was a tremor. It was just like this trembling noise and the whole building shook," she said.

"I haven't been working here very long so I'm fairly green about airport noises. I didn't know what it was. But you knew it was something bad. There was a sense of shock around the whole building."

Simon Harris, of nearby Tilekiln Green, said: "I saw a huge ball of flames in the sky and lots of bits floating off it like burnt paper. It lit up the whole sky."

Great Hallingbury resident Amy Beth said the whole sky turned orange and the ground shook.

Denise Coleman, of Great Hallingbury, said: "People were saying it sounded like a bag of nails when it took off, and took off too low.

"Then there was silence followed by an explosion. A lot of people half expected that because of the sound when it took off.

"The debris is spread over about a mile."

As power was cut off from most houses and police cordoned off Great Hallingbury, residents gathered in the village pub, the Hoppoles.

Mrs Coleman said: "Everybody has come in for a few jars. This kind of thing tends to get people out to talk to each other."

Villagers in Little Hallingbury were counting themselves very lucky indeed.

Paul Holmes, of Latchmore Bank, Little Hallingbury, said: "We had a power cut and one of the girls heard a great big bang and felt the ground shake.

"Another two minutes and it would have been on top of us. It was seconds off the motorway.

"We went up to where it happened at about 7.20pm and saw all the fire engines and the helicopter."

Andrew Robinson, of Little Hallingbury said: "All the residents are concerned about the amount of aircraft coming over.

"Another few seconds and it would have been on houses over here. It is very worrying."

Airport flight chaos

Air passengers stranded at Stansted Airport were bewildered and confused following the crash.

Flights to all parts of Europe were cancelled as air crash investigators began the long process of examining the runway.

Erica Smith, 39, of Potters Bar and Nicola Hooper, 25, of Ross on Wye, had hoped to board their Ryanair flight to Londonderry at 7.15pm.

Erica Smith said: "I just hope we get a flight out of here eventually."

Miss Hooper added: "I find it bad that we have not been informed of anything, no announcements, nothing.

Douglas Spalding, 35, of East Kilbride, took a lighter note as he waited for his flight to Prestwick.

He said: "It's better to be on the spectator side of a crash, and from that point of view we are really glad we're here.

"But we don't know what's going on. BAA are a fountain of knowledge but they've obviously run out of water."

Bettine Howes, 69, of Sheringham, Norfolk, said: "It's not knowing what's happening that's the problem. We could be stuck here for days.

Red-eyed Niamh Duddy, 24, from Dublin, had flown to Britain to be with relatives at Christmas. She was on a Stansted flight diverted to Luton Airport before being transferred to Stansted.

She said: "We landed at Luton at 7.30pm but they didn't let us off the plane until 9.30pm because the airport was full up."

Wreckage - Police and firemen spent this morning collecting pieces of the aircraft around the crash site

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