A MAJOR emergency services operation was due to begin at first light this morning to recover the bodies of two Air Corps pilots killed during a training flight in Co Mayo yesterday and to establish what caused the crash.
The loss of the two pilots on what should have been a routine training flight from Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel, Co Dublin, across the country is one of the worst tragedies ever for the Air Corps.
The Defence Forces, Department of Transport and Irish Aviation Authority will this morning have teams of investigators on the ground trying to determine how the five-year-old Pilatus PC-9 came down in a mountainous remote region west of Cong.
The circumstances leading to the loss of the two pilots were not known last night but it is believed they were engaged in a low-flying exercise. Such flights are regularly conducted in that part of the country as part of the training regime for young pilots.
There were reports last night that the plane was trying to make an emergency landing when it crashed. The incident is the first fatal crash suffered by the Air Corps in recent years.
Five years ago, an Air Corps cadet, Second Lieut Raymond Heery, from Oldcastle, Co Meath, died when the Cessna Fr-174 he was flying crashed after take-off from the Irish Parachute Club in Clonbullogue, Co Offaly.
The worst single crash in Air Corps history took place in July, 1999, when four Air Corps air/sea rescue crew died in a Dauphin helicopter crash while returning from a rescue mission off Tramore, Co Waterford.
The Pilatus PC-9 is a single-engine, two-seat turboprop training aircraft manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft of Switzerland.
Over 250 of them have been manufactured and are used for training purposes by the Air Corps, the Swiss Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Saudi Air Force and Royal Thai Air Force.