NAVAL SERVICE divers yesterday recovered a car from Cork harbour some 10 months after it went off a river ferry in an incident in which a 28-year-old Polish man died.
Divers from the Haulbowline naval base were carrying out a training exercise near where the green VW Polo went off the ferry between Carrigaloe and Glenbrook at about 10.30am yesterday when they located the missing car.
Krystian Mielnik drowned when the car in which he was a passenger left the ferry midway across the river at about 6.40pm on March 9th. His body was never found.
A Naval Service spokesman yesterday explained that the divers regularly carry out training exercises in areas where searches have been unsuccessful and that they located the car some 150m downstream from the slipway and 40m into the channel at a depth of 11m.
The dive team checked there was no body in the car, which was submerged in mud.
The team used air bags to bring it to the surface and tow it to the former Verolme dockyard, where it was handed over to gardaí for examination.
Last September an inquest into Mr Mielnik's death heard how the car, driven by another Pole, Sebastian Loniawski, moved forward on the ferry Carrigaloe, went through a protective barrier and up the ramp and into the water as the ferry was crossing the channel.
The crew threw lifebuoys to Mr Mielnik and Mr Loniawski but both were quickly swept downstream. Mr Loniawski was rescued by local boatman John Geary.
However, Mr Mielnik was lost.