THE family of a Bolton man killed when he was crushed by a wheel in a freak airport accident has been awarded compensation of £60,000.

Roger Brimelow, aged 39, was removing a pair of wheels from an industrial excavator at Manchester Airport when one of them blew off and landed on top of him.

Case UK, the firm that made the excavator, was fined £60,000 yesterday and ordered to pay costs of almost £25,000 at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court.

The company pleaded guilty to an offence under health and safety laws. The court was told that Mr Brimelow had been called to the airport during the construction of the second runway on February 20, 1999. A huge tyre on one of the heavy-duty machines had been punctured. But as Mr Brimelow tried to remove the twin set of wheels, part of one of them exploded and threw him through the air.

The wheel then hit him and caused fatal injuries to his head, chest and abdomen. He later died at Wythenshaw Hospital. An investigation into the accident by the Health and Safety Executive later revealed a design fault that, it was alleged, put anyone removing the wheels at risk.

The HSE found that threaded studs used to attach the wheels were too short, meaning that each wheel had to be fitted while the tyres were flat. When they were inflated, huge pressures were put on both the wheels and the nuts that attached them to the excavator.

Yesterday, Case UK admitted that the wheel was badly designed.

But while the firm had exposed Mr Brimelow to a risk to his health and safety, it had not caused his death, lawyers for Case UK maintained.

The company has since changed the size of the spacer used between twin wheels, reducing the pressure, and begun to use different types of wheels.

Fining the company, Judge Andrew Lowcock said: "One cannot have anything but the most profound sympathy for Mr Brimelow's family."

But he added: "This was a careless breach rather than a deliberate or reckless one. This was an isolated incident and the company has an unblemished safety record."