Experts study debris of crashed helicopter

Air accident investigators will try to reassemble the remains of the Air Corps helicopter which crashed into a sand dune near Tramore beach in Co Waterford yesterday, killing all four crewmen on board.

Air Corps personnel and officials from the Department of Public Enterprise yesterday began the painstaking task of collecting the debris of the aircraft which came down in dense fog at about 1 a.m. yesterday as the crew attempted to make a landing on the beach.

In the worst accident in the Air Corps' 77-year history, Capt Dave O'Flaherty (30), from Tullamore, Co Offaly; Capt Mick Baker (28), Enniscorthy, Co Wexford; Sgt Paddy Mooney (34), Stamullen, Co Meath; and Cpl Niall Byrne (24), Killiney, Co Dublin, died in the fireball which erupted on impact with the 50ft sand dune.

They were on the first nighttime mission from Waterford Regional Airport, where a 24-hour search-and-rescue service using a Dauphin helicopter relocated from Baldonnel had been introduced on Thursday.

The investigation will focus on how such an accident could have happened to a state-of-the-art aircraft, capable of being landed in all kinds of weather.

The crew had been called out shortly after 10.30 p.m. to help locate a small pleasure craft with four men and a 12-year-old boy on board, which had sailed from Dungarvan at 7 p.m. but got into difficulty when the fog descended more quickly than expected.

The Air Corps team remained on standby as the boat was towed ashore by the Helvick RNLI lifeboat, with the larger Ballycotton lifeboat also in attendance. With the rescue mission successfully completed, the crew returned to Waterford airport but, with visibility now extremely poor, aborted three attempts to land.

The crew then radioed the Irish Marine Emergency Service at 12.37 a.m. to say they were taking the safer option of landing at Tramore beach, 4km from the airport. That was the last that was heard from them.

When attempts to re-establish radio contact with the crew failed 10 minutes later, a major search operation was started by gardai, the Ballycotton lifeboat, an IMES helicopter based in Dublin, the naval vessel, the LE Emer, coastal and cliff search teams and the Civil Defence.

The still-burning wreckage of the helicopter was found in an area known locally as the "rabbit burrows", adjacent to Tramore beach, at 2.30 a.m. The badly-burned remains of the four men were at or close to the scene but, with visibility very poor even as dawn broke, it was several hours before there was confirmation that all four bodies had been found.

The remains were placed in coffins and brought to the promenade, about two miles from the crash site, at 11.30 a.m., followed by a sombre procession of Air Corps colleagues, gardai, Civil Defence personnel and others who had helped in the search. They were removed to Waterford Regional Hospital for post-mortem examinations.

Relatives of the four visited the crash scene at lunchtime. The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, who visited the scene early yesterday with the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Dr Woods, said it was likely to be "a couple of weeks" before the reasons for the accident became clear.

Both Ministers were visibly distressed by what they had seen. "The aircraft itself had been flown in about 450 missions, saving hundreds of people," said Mr Smith. "On this occasion we're faced with the loss of four great men who went out in high-risk conditions to save people . . . They were within minutes of getting down safely when they hit the dune."

One theory, that the helicopter ran out of fuel, is unlikely to have been the cause given the inferno which evidently erupted when the aircraft struck the peak of the dune, apparently with considerable force.

The Air Corps press officer, Comdt Barry Hanan, said the Dauphin was fitted with a "precise instrument" which tells the crew their height above ground level. Asked why this had apparently not worked on this occasion, he said: "We've no idea what worked and what didn't. All the instruments are being photographed and are being checked out in due course."