One of the relatives of two of those who died in the Tuskar Rock air tragedy said yesterday that his family was "a little closer" to finding out why the Viscount St Phelim had crashed into the sea on March 24th, 1968, following the publication of yesterday's report.
Mr Michael Burke from Cork, whose mother and grandmother died, said he did not want to comment at length as he wanted "time to read and digest the report". The meeting between relatives and the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, yesterday afternoon had been "very relaxing." He "appreciated the work" of the investigators.
He was 18 when he heard "on the radio" that flight EI 172, was missing. It was a bright, sunny Sunday morning. At 11.57 a.m. a message was picked up by Heathrow: "12,000 feet descending, spinning rapidly". Those were the last words heard from the Viscount's captain, Mr Barney O'Beirne. The plane was exactly on its designated course just south of Hook Head, Co Wexford, when it fell 17,000 feet into over 250 feet of water. All its 57 passengers and four crew members were killed.
Speculation as to the cause began almost immediately, focusing first on the possibility that the plane's control flaps jammed. The then Department of Transport and Power published its report in 1970. Its author, Mr Richard O'Sullivan, raised the hypothesis that another aircraft may have been involved, "either a drone target aircraft or a missile".
Mr Burke said his family was never satisfied that the truth had emerged. The most persistent theory has been that the British military was testing missiles and that one went out of control, destroying the plane. In March 1998, at a 30th anniversary commemoration in Cork of the crash, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, heard renewed calls for a review of the 1970 Report. That same month a report on RTE's Primetime supported the theory that the St Phelim may have been hit by a missile.
Although the British government had maintained there was no missile-testing at the Aberporth testing facility in Wales on the weekend of the crash, the Primetime report showed anomalies in the facility's logbook.
In November of that year, relatives of the dead began to prepare for legal action against the State and Aer Lingus.
A further report, also by Primetime, in January last year said British cabinet papers relating to a missile test site in Wales were destroyed in 1982, "just as the media posed questions about missile involvement in the crash".
January last year saw a flurry of activity. On the 6th, Ms O'Rourke met the then British ambassador, Dame Veronica Sutherland, to discuss the disaster. Two days later the Minister referred a document alleging a British cover-up of the disaster to the investigation section of her Department. On January 12th a new official review was announced by the Department.
A report of that investigation was published yesterday. A further investigation is now deemed necessary.
