A SENIOR engineer with Wicklow County Council has told an inquest how he accepted a lift from Ireland West Airport Knock to Weston airport, Dublin, on a single-engined aircraft which crashed shortly after take-off.
The pilot, Markus Casey (51), Dr Mannix Road, Salthill, Galway, an archaeologist who ran a light-aircraft maintenance company, Shoreline Aviation, at Knock, was killed instantly when his Beechcraft Skipper 77 crash-landed in a field at Kilmovee, Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, on May 11th last.
A verdict of accidental death was returned by the jury after hearing a graphic account of the crash.
His passenger, John Dunphy, Deansgrange, Blackrock, Co Dublin, told the inquest into Mr Casey's death at Swinford, Co Mayo, yesterday that after delivering a Cessna 152 to Knock for storage in hangar facilities there he had bought a bus ticket home but then accepted an offer of a lift from Mr Casey to Weston airport.
There was nothing unusual about the take-off, Mr Dunphy, explained but after five minutes he heard the pilot making a distress call to air traffic control at Knock that he had an engine problem.
The pilot said he was losing power and intended returning to the airport.
"It wasn't obvious to me that there was a problem with the engine," Mr Dunphy said.
"There was no rough running, nothing like that."
He said Mr Casey was trying to locate a field for an emergency landing.
He did not remember anything much after those radio calls until he woke up in the wreckage where a man and a woman were talking to him, trying to keep him conscious.
Questioned by the coroner, Pat O'Connor, Mr Dunphy said the take-off had been normal and he was "sitting there in disbelief" when he heard Mr Casey make the emergency calls.
Patrick Murphy said he and his wife heard a noise "similar to the sound of thunder."
"I ran towards the plane followed by my wife," Mr Murphy said.
"When I arrived at the plane, the tail of the plane was nearest to me and on the left-hand side, hanging out the door, over the wing, was the body of a male.
"This body, which was hanging out, appeared lifeless," Mr Murphy added.
Another witness, Judith Keane, said the engine of the aircraft, which was flying low, cut out as it flew over her house.
"The plane then glided away from my house and tilted to the right and came down in O'Donnell's field.
"I heard a thud sound, not a loud bang."
Air traffic controller Jason Murray said that five or six minutes after take-off, the pilot calmly reported that there was a vibration in the aircraft and requested permission to return to the airfield.
He said that at 4.47pm, Mr Casey confirmed that he was not going to hold altitude and would have to land.
The inspector of air accidents with the Air Accidents Investigation Unit, Paddy Judge, told the hearing that seven minutes after take-off, the pilot reported a vibration in the engine.
He later reported limited power and being unable to hold altitude, and then attempted a forced landing in difficult terrain.
"Witnesses described a labouring engine, which stopped, restarted for a couple of seconds and stopped again some seconds prior to the noise of impact.
"One witness reported a misfire. On inspection of the wreckage, the the propeller did not exhibit signs of rotation at impact."
Mr Judge said that after the engine was stripped under the supervision of an AAIU inspector, the inlet valves in both cylinder two and three were found to be damaged with radial cracking.
A segment of the inlet valve in cylinder two had separated and was found in cylinder four.
Mr Judge said the cause of the radial cracking had not been determined.
The investigation was ongoing and a final report would be published in due course.
Dr Fadel Bennani, a consultant pathologist at Mayo General Hospital, who carried out a postmortem, said Mr Casey would have died "within a second" of impact.
Death, in his opinion, was due to multiple fatal injuries sustained in an aircraft accident.