THE cause of an accident where a soldier lost control of his car and crashed, killing his 19-year-old passenger, will never be known, an inquest has heard.

Sapper Kieron Blight, a soldier with 26 Engineer Regiment based at Perham Down, died on November 11 last year when the car he was a passenger in overturned and hit a tree.

The car was being driven by his friend Darren Randall.

The pair were travelling from Tidworth back to their barracks in Perham Down along Station Road at about 6.30pm when Mr Randall’s silver Mazda MX5 convertible struck the nearside verge.

He lost control and the car flipped on to its roof.

No-one witnessed the crash but shortly afterwards Corporal Richard Lowe, a vehicle mechanic stationed at the Jelalibad barracks, who is also an ambulance volunteer, came across the scene.

An inquest in Salisbury heard on Friday that Cpl Lowe carried out emergency first aid and called an ambulance. Another officer also stopped to help but Sapper Blight stopped breathing before the ambulance arrived.

When Wiltshire Police investigated they found no defects with the car and although the tyres were low on pressure this would not have caused the crash. The inquest heard Mr Randall suffered severe head injuries and is still recovering. He has no memory of the crash and his blood sample showed he had not been drinking. The police investigation showed the vehicle was travelling at about 54mph, under the 60mph speed limit for the C389, and “inexplicably” struck the nearside verge.

PC Lucy Fair, from the serious collision investigation team, said: “There is no explanation as to why it struck the bank and no physical evidence on the vehicle or the road surface.”

Pathologist Susan Burroughs said Sapper Blight died from significant head and neck trauma as a result of the collision.

Senior coroner David Ridley said it would be wrong for him to make assumptions when there is no evidence about what caused the crash and recorded that the collision occurred when “for an unknown reason” the car hit the verge, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle.