O'Rourke refers Tuskar report for investigation

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, has referred a document alleging a British cover-up of the 1968 Tuskar air disaster to the investigation section of the air navigation unit within her Department.

Fifty-seven passengers and four crew died when the Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount on a Sunday morning flight to London from Cork fell 17,000 ft to the sea, two miles south of Tuskar Rock.

The official report of the subsequent investigation was unable to identify a cause, but its author, Mr Richard O'Sullivan, said at the time the indications were that the aircraft had either hit another aircraft or had been struck by a missile.

Over the past 30 years, allegations that the crash was caused by an accident during a British missile testing session continued to surface, recently aided by a document produced through a private investigator in the United States.

The document was provided at the behest of Ms Bonnie Gangel hoff, whose parents died in the crash. The British Ministry of Defence has consistently denied that the cause of the crash was anything to do with it.

The document, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, purports to be an internal Ministry of Defence document and alleges the aircraft was shot down by a Seadart missile fired by HMS Penelope.

It also alleges that victims' bodies were cremated in secret by the British Ministry of Defence to hide the evidence of the missile damage.

However, on the 30th anniversary of the crash last March, RTE's Prime Time screened an investigation into the crash which dismissed the document as a forgery. The RTE reporter on the programme, Mike Milotte, yesterday cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the document.

"We have seen photographs of HMS Penelope in 1968. It did not have the capability to fire Seadart missiles. It was engaged in testing, but it was testing silent propellers. There can be no doubt: the Penelope could not have fired the missile and reports of cremated bodies based on that premise can only be hurtful to the victims' relatives."

Mr Milotte said questions still remained about the fate of the aircraft but insisted that the document was not authentic. Britain's Ministry of Defence has also rejected the authenticity of the document, describing it as "entirely fraudulent".

As relatives of those who died called for full disclosure of the facts ahead of a meeting next week between the British ambassador, Dame Veronica Sutherland, and Ms O'Rourke, the ministry insisted it could not shed any more light on the cause of the crash.

It discounted speculation that HMS Penelope or any other British ship in the area was fitted with Seadart missiles. A spokesman said none of the British ships cited in connection with the crash - HMS Penelope, HMS Hardy, HMS Invermoriston and HMS Uplifter - was equipped or fitted with any missiles. Furthermore, he said claims that the RAF base in Aberporth, west Wales, tested missiles on the day of the crash had been disproved in the 1998 report.

"The ranges in west Wales . . . were closed on a Sunday. No missile firing took place," the spokesman said.