`They were very nice lads, and very professional'

The twisted wreckage of an emergency exit door lay atop the sand dune where Capt Dave O'Flaherty, Capt Mick Baker, Sgt Paddy Mooney and Cpl Niall Byrne lost their lives in such shocking circumstances yesterday.

If one thing was clear from the debris scattered over the patch of scorched earth beside Tramore beach - and not very much was clear - it was that the four men had had no time to think about emergency exits.

The force of the impact was such that the Dauphin helicopter disintegrated into countless small pieces, leaving almost nothing behind to tell an untrained observer what kind of aircraft it had been in the first place.

The only signs of what had actually gone wrong were probably misleading, like the maps interspersed with the wreckage, giving the impression that the last thing the men had been doing was trying to find their way to safety.

However, though it was their first night-time mission from Waterford, they knew the area well, having completed a number of stints in Waterford flying the Alouette helicopter - capable of day-time flying only - previously based there.

The debris was concentrated in a remarkably small area about 40 metres long by 10 metres wide. It appeared that the craft hit the peak of the dune, but yet low enough for the sand bank to absorb the impact. Had the men managed to make it over the peak, they would have been just 200 yards from the safety of Tramore beach.

Less than 24 hours before the tragedy, Capt O'Flaherty and Capt Baker, experienced pilots with more than 20 years' service in the Air Corps between them, had posed for photographs in the craft as the new 24-hour search-and-rescue service was launched in Waterford.

A Clonmel-based RTE camera man, Mr Donal Wylde, and his colleague, a sound operator, Mr Jim Wylde, had taken a trip in the craft with the two men. Yesterday they were back, a matter of hours later, to film the men's coffins being removed to Waterford Regional Hospital, and the unrecognisable remains of the aircraft in which they died.

"They were very nice lads. Very professional and very helpful," said Mr Wylde, clearly shocked at what had happened.