An electrician yesterday described how he watched in horror as a forklift truck careered out of control, crushing a trainee colleague to death.

Mr James Reid told a fatal accident inquiry the vehicle, being driven by teenager Scott Mair, hit two hollows in the road before overturning.

Mr Reid, 24, and another workmate rushed to the scene of the accident but he said it was obvious Scott had been killed instantly.

Scott, 17, had been working as a trainee electrician at the Dundas Brothers knackery in Kintore, Aberdeenshire, when the accident happened last June.

Earlier this year, the company was fined #10,000 at Aber-deen Sheriff Court when it admitted a charge of breaching health and safety regulations in connection with the incident.

The inquiry heard that Scott, of Downie Way, Kemnay, Aber-deenshire, was helping Mr Reid clear out an old mill on the site.

Mr Reid, of Baker Street, Aberdeen, told the inquiry he told Scott to take the forklift down a 50-yard slope from a skip to the mill: ''The forklift went up a bank and toppled over. He tried to jump clear but obviously that's when it landed on top of him.''

Mr Reid told solicitor Sandy Kemp, representing the ITAC training agency, that he had given Scott a brief description of how to operate the truck: ''I had had no training myself. I had been shown by one of the other electricians.''

Health and safety official Paul Smith told the inquiry that training to allow a worker to operate a forklift truck would normally take between three and five days.

The inquiry, before Sheriff Pamela Bowman at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, continues today.