Farmers recall moment before crash

TWO HEARSES left Crimlin East in Joyce country early yesterday afternoon with the bodies of Capt Derek Furniss and Cadet David Jevens, bound for University College Hospital, Galway (UCHG).

Shortly before, prayers for the dead men and their families had been led by Army chaplain Fr Tom Brady, of the First Infantry Battalion, Renmore Barracks, Galway. The brief service took place at a temporary base camp below the crash site on the 424m high Crimlin East.

Named “narrow valley” in Irish, Crimlin East is one of two headlands between a saddle close to the 494m high Lugnabrick mountain. It is an isolated area, known by Connemara farmers Seán Ó Cionnaith and Joe Walsh, who live close by and located the aircraft wreckage on Monday evening.

“I was out after sheep when the plane flew over me down low – so low I could see the pilot,” Mr Ó Cionnaith, a first responder-trained volunteer with the Corrib-Mask/Irish Red Cross rescue team, told The Irish Times.

“It had been strange weather, with mist dropping down and then clearing rapidly, and then dropping again. The plane flew into fog and then I hear two loud bangs. I looked into my Land Rover and the time was 5.50pm.

“The mist lifted seconds later, I could see smoke rising from the mountain, and then the cloud came in again. I went down to my neighbour Joe Walsh and we both agreed there must have been a crash, and his wife Margaret rang the emergency services and got Clifden gardaí.

“Joe and I decided it must be in one of two places, so we headed up on the quad bike and then walked in the last 500 metres,” he said.

“We picked up the smell of aviation fuel, and then we saw the wreckage. We ran in as we thought we might be able to help, but there was nothing to be done. I rang the emergency services from my phone and gave our position, and they told me to be careful to stay back as there may be explosive devices.

“The impact of the plane on the hillside was very clear. If it was five foot higher it would have cleared the hillock. The plane may have been heading for a gap in the mountains known as Glentrague valley but it didn’t make it.”

Both farmers said they had never seen military planes training in this area before.

“We stayed up there to direct in the Ballinrobe fire brigade, which was first on the scene, and its crew had VHF radios to communicate with the paramedics and Irish Coast Guard Shannon helicopter coming in,” Mr Ó Cionnaith said.

Mr Walsh, who also farms in Crimlin East, said that he remembered hearing a plane flying over the house, and then four bangs – “three sharp and very close together and then a heavy thud”.

“You could hear it echo across the valley. I put my two hands up on my head and I knew it was over for them,” Mr Walsh said.

“The fog was very strange, lifting and falling as if it was being blown by a gale but it was just a light breeze. It was all quiet, silent in the valley after the last bang. It’s desperately sad.”