A RETIRED anaesthetist and experienced pilot who died following an air crash was preparing to land his aircraft when it plummeted to the ground and burst into flames after one of its wings struck a tree, an inquest has heard.
Michael Slazenger (69), of the Powerscourt Estate, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, managed to crawl from the burning aircraft following the crash, which occurred on a private airfield on the estate on April 10th last year.
A passenger, businessman and friend of Dr Slazenger’s, Noel Whitney, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Giving evidence at the inquest at Dublin City Coroner’s Court, Dr Slazenger’s nephew, Alex Slazenger, said he was at home after 3pm when he heard a “loud bang”. His mother Sally Anne came running into the sitting room, screaming that something had happened to Michael.
“I ran towards Michael’s plane which was on fire,” said Mr Slazenger. “I saw a man crawling with difficulty out of the plane and I ran towards him to assist him away from the plane. I grabbed hold of the man, who I recognised as my uncle, and dragged him about five metres from the plane,” he added.
His clothes were on fire and Mr Slazenger helped him extinguish the flames.
The retired anaesthetist was taken to Tallaght hospital by Air Corps helicopter and was later transferred to St James’s Hospital, where he died on April 12th of multi-organ failure due to injuries sustained in the crash.
The inquest heard that Dr Slazenger, who was a very experienced pilot, was performing “a go-around”, to give himself time to check to make sure the undercarriage or wheels of the private aircraft were down before landing, when the left wing struck the branches of a tree.
An investigation by the Air Accident Investigation Unit found the undercarriage was down at the time. Inspector Leo Murray of the unit described the “go-around” as a “prudent course of action”. He said if the undercarriage had been retracted, the pilot would have cleared the tree.
The combination of the airfield’s location – on the side of a valley – and the slope on the runway, created a challenging situation for any pilot, and the tree was a “significant obstruction to operations”, the air accident investigation found.
The airstrip has since been closed permanently.
After hearing evidence, coroner Dr Brian Farrell said there appeared to be an issue with the control panel on the private plane, one of 20 Falco aircraft manufactured in Italy in 1968. Dr Slazenger had the aircraft since the 1970s.
The light on the control panel that indicated the wheels were down was white in colour and difficult to see in daylight, he said.
The coroner said he did not think he could offer the jury any other verdict apart from accidental death, which the jury of seven returned under his direction.