The same model of seaplane which crashed killing five Britons including a FTSE-100 chief executive had caused the deaths of another UK family two years before, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Air accident investigators in Australia are examining the wreckage of the De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver to determine why it nosedived into a river outside Sydney killing all onboard.

The 55-year-old seaplane had been chartered on New Year’s Eve by Richard Cousins, the retiring chief executive of the £25 billion Compass catering group. 

Mr Cousins, whose first wife died of cancer in 2015, had taken his fiancee Emma Bowden, her 11-year-old daughter Heather and his two grown-up sons to Australia to spend Christmas…

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