THE TRAGEDY OF THE TUSKAR ROCK DOCUMENTARY

                                                                  by Ron Walsh

                                                                  The Animo television documentary ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy was first broadcast by RTE Television in October of 2022, to an expectant audience. In the programme an inordinate amount of time was spent explaining how an unmanned target drone was the possible, or even probable, cause of the damage to the Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount EI-AOM, operating as flight 712 from Cork to London, which resulted in the plane plunging into the sea off the Wexford coast on Sunday March 24th 1968.

                                                                  The report of the initial investigation into the tragedy was published immediately on completion, which had been signed-off by the ‘’Inspector of Accidents’’ on June 30th 1970. The conclusion reached was that ‘’The crash was caused by impairment of control ability of the aircraft due to damage to its tailplane. There is evidence which could be construed as indicative of the possible presence of another aircraft or airborne object in the vicinity, which, by reasons of collision, or by its proximity caused an evasive manoeuvre to be made, or by its wake turbulence, might have been the initiating cause of an upsetting manoeuvre resulting in the Viscount entering a spin or spiral dive. There is no substantiating evidence of such a possibility, but it cannot be excluded’’.

                                                                   The 1970 Report, instead of speculating about an ‘’aircraft or airborne object’’ for which there was no ‘’substantiating evidence’’, would have been far better employed investigating why many of the maintenance records relating to EI-AOM were missing, a fact which was not even mentioned in that final written report. It is also worth noting that the person in charge of the crash investigation was also the same person who had authorised the annual renewal of the Certificate of Airworthiness, dated February 14th, thirty-eight days before the tragedy. (This cannot occur today as crash investigations are now carried out independently by the Air Accident Investigation Unit.) The issuing of that certificate was not accompanied by an actual examination of the aircraft, only the paperwork was examined, and the maintenance errors which had been present for over a year were not discovered until months after the crash.

                                                                   Mike Reynolds, author, merchant seaman and amateur pilot, who assisted the International Team which produced the 2002 Report, states in his 2003 book ‘’Tragedy At Tuskar Rock’’ that he had read an analysis of the maintenance procedures carried out on EI-AOM during the twelve months prior to the crash, a study made shortly after the event and carried out by an inspector within the Department of Transport and Power. In it the maintenance plan was shown to be completely haphazard. Many tasks were carried out far too late, such as ‘’due within 700 (flying) hours, not called until 1,750 hours’’; ‘’due within 350 hours, not called until 1,400 hours’’. Crazy as it might seem some tasks were carried out early, such as ‘’due within 1,050 hours, called within 350 hours’’. Other tasks were even carried out within the stated compliance time. Reynolds wrote a perceptive comment on the matter; ‘’If an airline executive had set out to be certain that Murphy’s law would feature in the plan, he could not have done better’’.

                                                                    An internal Aer Lingus memo dated January 3rd 1968, and sent to the Chief Inspector, revealed that the work cards from an EI-AOM check dubbed ‘’Inspection Visit 2.04’’, which had been carried out on the 17th and 18th of December 1967, were missing, except for a single job-card. But when the relevant engineer was asked for a report a few days after the crash he gave the date of inspection as December 19th, indicating that there had been no ‘’carry-over’’ defects associated with the inspection, as far as he could recall.

                                                                    A prerequisite for renewal of the airworthiness certificate for any plane was that all documents relating to its maintenance history were in order! The person who signs the certificate is confirming;

1. That all recommendations made by the Inspecting Officers have been satisfactorily performed.

2.That all compulsory modifications or alterations applicable to this type of aircraft have been incorporated.

3. That this aircraft is on this day in good and airworthy condition and is recommended for continuation of Certificate of Airworthiness.

4. That the aircraft documents are in order.

                                                                   Yet almost all of the work cards relating to ‘’Inspection Visit 2.04’’ had been found to be missing some forty days prior to the certificate being renewed, and remain so today. And it has not been possible to determine the content of the individual job-cards relating to the various items within the maintenance plan, as a thorough search of records in Aer Lingus, the Department of Transport and Power, and the Irish Aviation Authority had produced nothing!

                                                                   A Viscount on a training-flight, EI-AOF, crashed into a field in county Meath some nine months prior to the Tuskar Rock tragedy, with the pilot and both trainee pilots loosing their lives. If a proper investigation had been carried out into the loss of that plane it would have shown up the various errors in the maintenance programme, which could then have been rectified. But that never happened. And there were remarkable similarities between the fate of both planes during their final thirty minutes, including flight patterns after the initial upset, and also the degradation sequences.

                                                                   In ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy’’ the narrator advises viewers that ‘’Flight 712 crashed because of catastrophic damage to its tailplane. But what remained a mystery for decades was what caused that damage. Perhaps a collision, or a near miss with another airborne object, or a structural fault, or fatigue in a ten-year-old-plane, or maybe a maintenance error’’. Interesting comments, which, leaving aside ‘’another airborne object’’, lays the blame on ‘’a maintenance error’’. Any such error might well have resulted in ‘’fatigue’’ or a ‘’structural fault’’ in the tailplane. The 2002 Report, which was issued twenty years prior to the Animo documentary, completely dismissed the theory of another airborne object having been the cause of the crash.

                                                                   (Note; Tailplanes are the two horizontal surfaces which extend outwards on each side of a planes tail, below the vertical fin and rudder. In the US they are called stabilisers. The force on a tailplane is exerted by the airflow which passes above and below it. This keeps the main wings at the correct angle to the airflow, using the long fuselage as a lever. Hinged surfaces called elevators extend behind the tailplanes, and these are angled up or down by pulling or pushing the pilot’s control column to climb or descend. Unlike the main wings, which give lift, the tailplanes exert leverage downward. If any initial damage had lead to progressive deterioration of a part of EI-AOM’s tail surface, a time would arrive when a critical component might fail, resulting in an ensuing struggle to maintain flight. Any excessive manoeuvre could easily stress the plane beyond its design limitations, leading to the separation of an elevator and then a tailplane.)

                                                                    A piece of wreckage was washed ashore on Greenore Point beach seven months after the crash, almost entirely wrapped in seaweed, and was later identified as a part of the spring tab from EI-AOM. This item is fitted to the trailing edge of the elevator which is hinged to the left tailplane on a Viscount, with the latter providing control and stability. If the left elevator had detached in flight, the spring tab would soon follow. Any failure to examine and rectify excessive play in the spring tab or trim tab can have devastating consequences. The left and right tailplanes and their respective elevators were not part of the recovered wreckage, although an outer section of the trim tab from the right elevator was found. It is almost certain that the object seen floating off the Saltee Islands for some time was the left elevator from EI-AOM. Another witness from a clear vantage point close to Tacumshane Lake, who had previously been watching the waters breaking over the Black Rock, suddenly saw a ‘’mushroom of water out to sea’’ a few miles south of the Barrels, two large rocks located about three miles off Carnsore Point. In all probability that sighting was caused by flight 712’s left tailplane entering the water. The piece of the spring tab found on a beach seven months after the crash would have been jettisoned shortly after the elevator.

In response to calls by relatives of the passengers and crew of the doomed aircraft, in 1999 a review of the Irish and UK files relating to the crash was carried out by Kevin Humphreys, Chief Inspector of the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit, and his colleague Graham Liddy. Their review revealed some serious errors in the Maintenance Operating Plan employed by Aer Lingus in 1967/68, and also the fact that many maintenance records were missing. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O’Rourke, advised the government that a fresh study based outside Ireland, to be conducted by objective and impartial experts, was what was now required. Such a team was shortly assembled just outside Paris.

The narrator in the Animo documentary states that ‘’A review ordered by the Minister into the 1970 Report found there were many matters for concern, but no evidence that the missing maintenance records had any bearing on the cause of the accident’’. Part of that 2002 Report reads; ‘’A review of the aircraft in-service experience, and, in particular, a number of defects and accidents which occurred posterior to that of EI-AOM, lead to the International Team’s opinion as follows; An initial event, which cannot be clearly identified, is considered to be some form of distress affecting the horizontal tail of the aircraft. Possible causal factors are metal fatigue, corrosion, flutter or a bird strike........A progressive failure of the port (left) tailplane and elevator is consistent with the observations relating to the ultimate attitudes of the aircraft’’. Metal fatigue, corrosion and flutter could certainly have been the result of the dreadful maintenance record. There was no indication amongst the recovered parts of the plane, including the four engines, of a bird strike having caused the crash. Animo was whistling into the wind.

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What the 1970 Report did manage to do was to maintain a rumour that had been initiated on the day after the crash, that flight 712 had been downed by another aircraft or target drone! If Aer Lingus had been found to be responsible for the tragedy, it would have caused severe financial distress to the company. During the following year it did become known that the airline was facing a loss of £300,000. When in trouble, or even in doubt, blame the Brit’s. A red aircraft known as a drone, and fired from Wales, was the ideal solution to get Aer Lingus out of a hole! And that was what was achieved back then.

One section of the 2002 Report reads; ‘’The crash was probably due to metal fatigue affecting the horizontal tail of the aircraft, but the involvement of missiles or other aircraft has been ruled out’’. Despite that finding ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy’’ persists in providing ‘’evidence’’ to support the disproven drone theory. When it became public knowledge that a drone or another aircraft had been ruled out, yet another conspiracy theory emerged, that the pilots of EI-AOM had deviated from their flight-plan to satisfy two American passengers who wished to overfly the JFK Arboretum and the Kennedy homestead, both located in county Wexford. The very idea that two professional pilots would even contemplate such a silly escapade is beyond comprehension. But the idea was floated, and caught fire. Anything to protect Aer Lingus was fair game.

Its somewhat strange that the Animo documentary makes no mention of the sightseeing theory, but it does hold onto the idea that a drone had been involved. Narrator; ‘’Almost 55 years later theories still persist as to what happened that day. Questions remain unanswered’’. As far as drone-involvement is concerned that question had been answered and put to bed back in 2002! Despite that fact the viewer is shown a number of extracts from ‘’RTE News’’ and ‘’Prime Time’’ programmes from back in the day, which support the drone theory. Those programmes show the crash-site as being located some three miles east-south-east of Tuskar Rock, whereas the actual location was eventually found to be 1.47 nautical east-NORTH-east of the lighthouse! That false location had been created by the assertion that at 1057.07 GMT flight 712 had advised Shannon ATC (Air Traffic Control) that it was ‘’by Bannow’’, a designated reporting position located some ten miles east-south-east of Tuskar Rock. Following the radio message received by London ATC from EI-AOM at 1058.10 GMT that it was ‘’descending, spinning at (sic) rapidly’’, it was estimated that the plane would have entered the water minutes later at a certain location, thus the false crash-site was created.

On the 25th anniversary of the crash, March 24th 1993, ‘’RTE News’’ made the following comment; ‘’Eyewitness accounts suggest that there was another object in the area. People saw what seems to be a different plane. Some saw it crash into the sea many miles from where the Aer Lingus plane eventually went into the water. Two people saw an object floating in the sea afterwards for about an hour........At 1157am EI-AOM reported its position normally to Cork ATC and was about to change frequency to London ATC. By 1157 it was at its cruising altitude of seventeen thousand feet. In the next few seconds a disaster of some kind struck the aircraft. Almost immediately it identified itself to London ATC, followed by the message ‘Twelve thousand feet, descending, spinning rapidly’. Nothing more was ever heard from the Viscount’’.

There are a number of errors in that particular statement. The times used by ATC’s and pilots were always given in GMT, therefore flight 712 took off from Cork airport at 1032 GMT and reported its position and altitude at 1057.07 GMT to Shannon ATC, not Cork ATC. The 2002 Report came to the definite conclusion that EI-AOM never went anywhere close to its cruising altitude of seventeen thousand feet! Therefore the supposed 1057.07 call was simply a mistake, at the very least. Also, the message given to London ATC at 1058.10 had not included the words ‘’Twelve thousand feet’’. The altitude given had been ‘’Five thousand feet’’.

But the 1970 Report claimed that ‘’Twelve thousand feet’’ had been spoken. This was done to accommodate the cruising altitude that had supposedly been given to Shannon ATC (17,000 feet), because the plane could not have fallen twelve thousand feet, while spinning, within a matter of seconds! (The final radio contact with Shannon was said to have been made at 1057.29, and the ‘’descending/spinning’’ message to London took place at 1058.10) The time-line, at the very most, would have been a mere forty-one seconds. That could not have happened. In any case the International Team, using up-to-date audio testing equipment, confirmed that the altitude given had been five thousand feet, not twelve! The London ATC controller can even be heard repeating the words ‘’Five thousand feet’’.

There was even more disinformation in RTE’s ‘’Prime Time’’ programme broadcast on the 30th anniversary of the crash; ‘’Could the Viscount’s path have been crossed by a stray missile?........The Ministry of Defence said the Welsh Missile Range was closed that day........But the Ministry did confirm that part of a piloted aircraft used as a target was found by a trawler off Wexford five years later’’. Yet another conspiracy theory, and from the Ministry of Defence, this one claiming that the wing of a drone had been found by a trawler off the Saltee Islands five years after the crash. (That theory had actually surfaced four years after the crash.) But neither the police nor any Irish daily newspaper, nor any local newspaper, had news of such a find! And a find like that would have made newspaper headlines all over the country, and even further afield.

The Animo documentary decided to introduce viewers to two Cork men who ‘’have dedicated eight years to unravelling what they believe is still a mystery. For some the belief that there was a second plane in the skies over Tuskar Rock persists to this day. Four witness’s saw floating wreckage off the Saltee’s’’. Those four observers, who had been standing in two different locations on the day (at Newtown and Slade, close to Bannow and Hook Head respectively), made statements that they had seen a silver-coloured object enter the water about half-way between Fethard and the Saltee Islands, at the approximate time of 1100 GMT, and that it had continued to float above water for over two hours. It was last observed at a point west-south-west of the Saltee’s.

When asked about the size of the object two of the observers thought that it had been about ‘’eight feet square’’, while another compared it to a sheet of galvanised roofing. It was also mentioned that when the object rose on each wave crest it was seen to be tapered at one end. One witness had watched it through field-glasses, and said that one end of the object was oval in shape. They could well have been describing the left elevator of flight 712, certainly not the wing of a target drone.

The Rebel County men also claimed that a red target drone had been ‘’seen by fifty witness’s, allegedly at two hundred feet, before, in our opinion, crashing into the Saltee’s’’. A red plane was not seen anywhere off the south-east coast of Ireland on March 24th 1968, as both Welsh Missile Range’s were closed that weekend, and almost every weekend, with airlines and pilots being so advised.

To be fair to the documentary-makers, in an interview with Lt. Col. Kevin Byrne, Airport Safety and Security Auditor, the latter does explain that the Welsh Missile Sites were closed on the day of the crash. However, the amount of time given to those who support the drone theory far outweighs the few seconds allotted to the Lt. Col., and its own brief mention of the 2002 conclusion on the matter.

There is also the important matter of flight 712’s ‘’Fasten Seat Belt/No Smoking’’ sign, which was found to be illuminated at the time of the crash. If the plane had really been hit by a drone, or even caught up in its wake, there would have been no time whatsoever for the sign to be activated as the pilots would have been franticly engaged in attempting to stabilise the aircraft. It was later discovered that a number of passengers had fastened their seat-belts sometime prior to the crash. But the information concerning the ‘’Seat Belt’’ sign, although known at the time, was something else that was not included in the 1970 Report!

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Shortly after the downing of EI-AOM the Australian flight authorities shocked the world of aviation by banning all Vickers Viscount 700 Series aircraft from their skies! They decided that they could no longer be trusted. They also introduced the most stringent of requirements for any future flights of the 800 Series. During the year airworthiness directives from Vickers were coming thick and fast to all airlines operating the Viscount 700 and 800 Series, prompted by worldwide problems experienced in the tail. EI-AOM was part of the 800 Series, an 803, and it soon became known that the new type was more vulnerable to tailplane fatigue cracks (a trait of metal under high stress) than its predecessor, which was attributable to a design change. The Australian authorities decided early in 1969 that the maintenance tasks and modifications required had become far too demanding, and banned the entire 800 Series also! Commonwealth links with Britain were completely ignored when they decided to do so. The British-made Viscount was a suspect plane.

Of the 445 Viscount’s built, 144 were involved in accidents that resulted in total loss of the aircraft. Almost one-third. In 1967 Aer Lingus lost two of its total of fifteen Viscount’s. One in June, which crashed into a field in county Meath, causing the death of all three pilots on board. A second in September when a Viscount crash-landed at Bristol airport, but with no loss of life. Soon after the 1968 crash Aer Lingus put their remaining Viscount’s up for sale, and replaced them with Boeing’s.

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At no stage in the Animo documentary are the testimonies of forty-six witness’s mentioned, something that had not been included in the 1970 Report either. An extraordinary omission. All those people reported seeing a plane in distress over counties Cork, Waterford and Wexford on the morning of March 24th 1968! They had seen an Aer Lingus plane, which a number of them identified as a Viscount, while others could even read the letters on the side of it, EI-AOM! It was put about at the time that it must have been a ‘’search plane’’. But why would a search plane be flying over those counties when flight 712 was said to have been up to sixty miles further east when last heard from, fairly close to the Welsh coast? Another Aer Lingus Viscount, flight 362 en route to Bristol, did divert to Strumble in order to carry out a search for 712.

The only reference that Animo makes to the 2002 Report is the decision that no other aircraft or drone was involved in the demise of EI-AOM. But what the International Team had also figured out was that 712’s troubles had commenced much earlier than assumed at the time, around 1042 GMT, some ten minutes after take-off. They also came to the conclusion that the plane had never reached an altitude much higher than nine thousand feet. So, for over thirty minutes both pilots had done everything in their power to save their aircraft, their passengers lives, and their own! They had been heroes, and certainly did not deserve to be cast as scapegoats, which they eventually were.

According to Shannon ATC, flight 712 reported that it had reached its cruising altitude of seventeen thousand feet on two occasions that morning, at 1051.48 GMT and also at 1057.07. In actual fact those calls were never made, for the obvious reason that that altitude had never been reached. But they were in the transcript provided, dated 25th March 1968. There was also another puzzling moment in the transcript. For a ten-minute period during which three aircraft were under the control of Shannon, including EI-AOM, no call-sign was used between the ATC and any of the three planes! Shannon enquired at 1041.20 ‘’Your present level?’’. Not to use a call-sign under those circumstances is completely unheard of, but even more mysterious is the fact that 712 is said to have responded immediately. But how did EI-AOM know that Shannon was talking to it, and not to one of the other two planes?

Using the forty-six witness testimonies at its disposal, the International Team worked out the true flight-path that 712 had taken on the day, a completely different track from the one that had been produced for the 1970 Report. After leaving Cork airport EI-AOM flew just north of Youghal, then turned inland and along the coast-line of Old Parish where it surprisingly made a 360 degree turn, and then dived almost vertically. (Something only test-pilots attempt.) Afterwards it flew close to the coast and turned sharply left just after Brownstown Head, passing Waterford city on its left. From there it flew close to New Ross town and over a northern section of the JFK Arboretum, then it turned sharply to its right and made yet another 360 degree turn, before descending in a spin. At that moment 712 reported to London ATC ‘’Five thousand feet, descending, spinning at (sic) rapidly’’.

Having recovered once again, the plane then flew close to Campile and reached the sea at Bannow, where it made a wide circle overland and returned once more to the sea near Fethard. It then flew between the mainland and the Saltee Islands, turned left and crashed into the water some distance east-north-east of Tuskar Rock. Between all of its alterations in flight-path 712 was often either climbing or diving, twice descending almost vertically, and at one point barely avoided hitting a church steeple in a village close to New Ross.

The aircraft had been in trouble almost ten minutes prior to its supposed call to Shannon at 1051.48, and crashed into the sea some thirty minutes after that initial mishap! A question often asked is; ‘’If 712 was flying in distress over counties Cork and Waterford, why did it not remain in radio contact with Shannon ATC?’’. The reason was something that all pilots flying east of the Silvermine and Slievefelim mountains at three thousand feet or less knew about. Those mountains, which are located twenty-five miles east of Shannon airport, preclude any signal clarity unless above about three thousand feet altitude. On that day EI-AOM was almost always below that height throughout its more than thirty minutes of travails. Between 1058.03 and 1058.10 flight 712 spoke to London ATC for the first and final time; ‘’Echo India Alpha Oscar Mike with you........finished........five thousand feet, descending, spinning at (sic) rapidly’’.

The fact that 712 used its registration-sign, Echo India Alpha Oscar Mike (EIAOM), instead of its flight number was unusual, but is easily explained. By then it had become obvious to both pilots that their plane was in extreme danger of crashing, with everyone on board about to loose their lives. Whichever pilot was operating the radio (more than likely Paul Heffernan) in that very stressful situation, it would not have been easy to recall the flight number, which changed on every trip, but the registration-sign was illuminated directly in front of both men, just above the dials. The word ‘’finished’’ had been recorded by London ATC, but had not been attributed to any specific aircraft. While its not certain that the word had come from EI-AOM, taking into account the time and circumstances its more than likely that it had.

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The transmission from Cork ATC to EI-AOM at 1037 cleared 712 to take the Tuskar route; ‘’712 is cleared turn left on course for Tuskar’’, which was the flight-plan that had been filed earlier that morning by co-pilot Paul Heffernan. Over the ordinary telephone line at 1036, and going by information it had received from Cork ATC, Shannon advised London that EI-AOM’s estimated time of arrival (ETA) at Strumble Head in Wales was 1107, as per flight-plan. In its first radio contact with Shannon at 1039.45 EI-AOM conveyed the following information; ‘’By Youghal, passing through 75, climbing to 170, Tuskar 57’’, giving its ETA at Tuskar as 1057 GMT.

A few seconds later Shannon advised 712 that if it wished to fly direct to Strumble Head it could do so; ‘’712, if you wish you may route direct to Strumble, go ahead’’, with EI-AOM replying; ‘’Affirmative. Estimating Strumble at 03’’. By avoiding Tuskar and taking the direct route 712 was reducing the actual distance by four nautical miles, and gaining one minute in time. But how could it possibly gain four minutes? Every pilot knew how important an ETA was to London airport (indeed, every airport), which was then used to funnel planes towards the busy skies around Heathrow, and to arrange safe traffic sequencing amid continuous arrivals and departures. Given its take-off time from Cork airport, and its estimated arrival-time at Tuskar of 1057, prior to the agreed change of course, there is no way that 712 would have called-in an ETA at Strumble of 1103! It would have had to have been 1106! However, that was the time that appeared on the Shannon transcript!

At 1057.07 EI-AOM advised Shannon; ‘’712 by Bannow. Level 170, estimating Strumble at 03’’. The distance from ‘’Bannow’’ to Strumble is forty-four nautical miles, and to make the Welsh headland at 1103 the plane would have had to have flown at about 500 miles-per-hour. The Viscount had a maximum cruising speed of 357 mph, and usually flew that particular route at 310 mph. Taking everything into account, its extremely difficult to imagine that the Shannon radio transcript provided was a de facto account of the radio conversations that took place between EI-AOM and the ATC from 1039 to 1058 on that day. There are simply too many errors contained therein.

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With the use of good editing, and despite the overwhelming dependency on the lost cause of the target drone, viewers of the Animo documentary are treated to some interesting interviews with some one dozen relatives of people who had perished on board EI-AOM. Afterwards, however, we are presented with yet another conspiracy theory, this one dealing with the search for the doomed plane.

Lifeboats from Rosslare Harbour, Kilmore Quay, Dunmore East, Wexford and Arklow, together with two from the Welsh ports of Fishguard and St. David’s, were quickly launched and began searching for bodies that afternoon, and into the evening. The Irish Naval Service corvette ‘’Macha’’, which had steamed from Killybegs in county Donegal, also arrived and took over as search-controller for the moment. It was soon joined by another Irish corvette, the ‘’Cliona’’. RTE television news commented the next day; ‘’The search for victims resumed this morning, after eight hours yesterday failed to locate the wreckage’’.

By now RAF planes and Irish Air Corps helicopters had joined Irish Naval ships and lifeboats in the search, together with many fishing boats from nearby ports who suspended their fishing operations temporarily. Three British Navy frigates had also arrived, ‘’Hardy’’, ‘’Penelope’’ and ‘’Invermoriston’’. RTE television commented; ‘’An RAF pilot spotted the first body about midday just off the Tuskar Rock, and about twenty miles north of where it had been thought the plane crashed’’. At this point there was obvious confusion between the statements of people who had seen something enter the water a few miles west of the Saltee Islands, another witness who had viewed an ‘’object’’ hit the sea south of the Barrels (two large rocks about three miles off Carnsore Point), and the general belief that 712 had crashed some miles south of the lighthouse.

RTE also included an interview with the pilot of one of the Irish Air Corps helicopters; ‘’We were flying at one hundred feet over the Tuskar Rock when the first body was picked up at 1.26 this afternoon. Immediately afterwards a number of other bodies were reported floating in the sea by a pilot close by’’. Only fourteen bodies were ever recovered out of the sixty-one people that had died.

Lt. Col. Mick Hipwell was an Irish Air Corps pilot involved in the search back then; ‘’Basically we were put on a search area, and we were down in the wrong area at the start. We were blocked out of the specific area at Tuskar, because the RAF were given that first. There was always a row about that........ We weren’t searching the area where the Aer Lingus plane went down. We weren’t allowed into that area initially that day. You just take the instructions you’re given. We were put further south than we should have been, towards the Saltee’s, and there was a splash seen out there, but it was never identified for what it was’’. Obviously the retired Lt. Col. had not kept abreast of the facts or he would have known that the ‘’splash’’ had almost certainly been caused by EI-AOM’s left elevator entering the water.

Hipwell continued; ‘’It was another aircraft, no question about it. The Aer Lingus one went down at Tuskar. There was another aircraft, so it was obviously some sort of near-miss collision that brought the Viscount down’’. The retired Lt. Col. is running with the same old conspiracy story that another aircraft or drone had caused the demise of flight 712, and he also knew that the RAF had been given first-preference to search the large Tuskar Rock area, code-named ‘’Alpha’’. But had the RAF really been given that area in order to cover-up any evidence that the plane had been hit by a drone?

The Animo documentary would appear to favour that idea, even though the only important conclusion it quotes from the 2002 Report is that no such plane had been involved in the downing of EI-AOM. In any case the search-areas had been allocated by Captain Thomas McKenna, Commanding Officer of the Irish Naval Service, and his second-in-command Lt. Commander Joe Deasey, with the search headquarters established in Rosslare Harbour. Its likely that both men assumed that the British ships would locate the fuselage before anyone else, something that never actually happened. There were also two men from the Department of Transport and Power monitoring the search, Eamon Dempsey and Joe Humphreys.

There were two witness’s to the entering of 712 into the water. One was a Spanish sailor working on a German ship which had been sailing a few miles off the Tuskar at the moment of impact, while the other was seventeen-year-old Martin Donohue, who, from outside his home in the Bing saw a large displacement of water soaring upwards at that moment. (Martin was the person who seven months later would find a piece of the spring tab from EI-AOM on a beach.) His home overlooked the expanse of sea surrounding the lighthouse, and he was working as an apprentice fisherman on board the Kilmore Quay trawler the ‘’Glendalough’’, skippered by twenty-three-year-old Billy Bates, whose father owned the boat.

Billy was on board the Kilmore Quay lifeboat which arrived at the scene early on the afternoon of the crash, his uncle Jimmy was coxswain. ‘’It got dark. We saw nothing. We got word to be down in the morning at seven o’clock. We got word to rendezvous at the Tuskar. There had been some bodies found before we got there........We picked up two bodies and a little bit of wreckage. There were eleven bodies picked up that Monday’’. At the inquest on the recovered bodies in Wexford town a few days later Captain Thomas McKenna stated; ‘’48 victims are irrecoverable from the sunken wreckage’’. That number was reduced to 47 when another body was located soon afterwards.

Trawler skipper Billy continued; ‘’We worked out of Rosslare, and we went out every morning and came back every evening. Eight ‘till six. That was it for every day, I think for sixty days’’. Peter Walls, son of Dessy Walls who had been a passenger on the ill-fated plane, commented; ‘’Eleven weeks of the British and Irish Navy not being able to find it’’. Animo narrator; ‘’Local trawler-men assisted the search for days, and eventually weeks, but always skirting the area around Tuskar Rock where at least two witness’s had seen the plane crash’’. The documentary had no compunction in implying that something sinister had surrounded the allocating of the Tuskar Rock area to the Royal Navy in the search for the missing plane.

It was well known locally that Martin Donohue had witnessed the spot where 712 had entered the water. The Commanding Officers of the Irish Naval Service, McKenna and Deasey, also knew. The story was rife. But Donohue had given the exact timing of his sighting as being 1215 local time, or 1115 GMT, a time that did not fit in with accepted belief. Flight 712’s call to London ATC at 1058.10 GMT; ‘’Five thousand feet, descending, spinning at (sic) rapidly’’, was taken as a clear indication that EI-AOM would have hit the water shortly within minutes, and not at 1115 GMT.

From the very commencement of the search the Shannon ATC radio transcript had been accepted as genuine, which meant that when 712 contacted London at 1058.10 with its ‘’descending’’ message, having already told Shannon just over one minute earlier that it was ‘’by Bannow’’, then the plane must have crashed soon afterwards, quite close to the designated reporting position. It was therefore said that Martin Donohue was wrong, and was simply not believed by those who mattered.

But Billy Bates believed him, and at some point during the more than ten week search for the plane he brought the matter up with Joe Deasey. But the second-in-command of the Irish Navy told Billy that he did not believe Martin’s story, and that the Royal Navy ships had searched the entire Tuskar Rock area a number of times, including the large section north of the lighthouse, without any sighting. Should Billy have pressed the matter more vigorously? Maybe. But who knows if it would have done any good? Its always easy to solve something in retrospect. As Billy said during one of our discussions; ‘’Retrospection is a great thing’’.

There is no doubt that if Martin Donohue’s sighting had been accepted from the start, instead of the false crash-site, that the plane would have been located within a couple of days, or little more, instead of the more than ten weeks that it actually took.

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The day following the crash the British frigate ‘’Hardy’’ sighted and recovered six bodies, all female, together with a few pieces of wreckage, some six nautical miles north-east of Tuskar Rock. Even more wreckage was spotted floating on the surface for up to six further miles north-east of that first find, which was also collected. The Commander of ‘’Hardy’’, James Lord, spoke to the press later that evening, during which he said that it would be difficult to figure out exactly where the plane had gone down, because of the strong winds and the severe tides that were running in the area. He estimated that the bodies may well have floated up to five miles following the crash. Lord’s estimation turned out to be pretty accurate when EI-AOM was finally located, although it did not help in the Royal Navy’s attempts to do so.

Television and radio reporters were encamped in local Rosslare hotels, and also in nearby Wexford town. Not only were there Irish and UK reporters involved, but many others were affiliated to international media outlets as news of the crash spread worldwide, with everyone interested in the search to locate the fuselage, which was proving to be very difficult. One Irish newspaper reported; ‘’The search for the wreckage of the crashed Viscount airliner continued off the Tuskar Rock, county Wexford, yesterday in fine weather, but again without success by the two British minesweepers, which went out from Rosslare Harbour’’.

An internal report on the search by the Royal Navy, which was released some twenty years ago under the Freedom of Information Act, makes for interesting reading; ‘’From the start it was difficult to plan a progressive salvage operation. On arrival at Tuskar on 20th May, I was told by the Chief of Irish Naval Staff that if the aircraft was not found in this phase, his Government would call it off. When the aircraft was found we were given one chance to raise it. This attitude prevailed throughout the operation, each visit was the last. Trying to work under these terms, in addition to the general difficulties encountered in an operation of this nature, had its effect on all concerned. The general feeling was always trying to grab what we could, in case we were not coming back. I feel this is no way to run a major salvage task’’.

The trawler ‘’Glendalough’’ had been hired by ‘’Bord Uisce Mara’’ to search for the plane, and following yet another fruitless day, on June 4th Billy Bates reported as usual to Commander Deasey and asked him ‘’Where are we going tomorrow? We were getting fed up by this time. He said ‘I don’t care where you go’, or something like that’’.

On the following day; ‘’We found her first haul. In a half-hour we had her. Martin had the landmarks. I’d say ‘How are we fixed now?’ and he’d say ‘A little further north’, or south, or whatever, and all the time he’d be lining up his marks........we could see something on the old echo-sounder, a lump rising up to 20 fathoms........So we hauled, and there were bits of the plane hanging out of the net everywhere’’. One of the planes doors was recovered in that very first haul. The Department of Transport and Power issued the following statement on the 8th; ‘’Following the discovery of additional small pieces of wreckage in the area where the plane’s door was found a few days ago, the search was recommenced after the stoppage due to spring tides’’.

Billy Bates recalled; ‘’Even then we had a job to convince the British Navy that the plane was there. The next day we went back to her, we towed into her and the boat stopped. Our gear was snagged in the plane and one of the British minesweepers came round. He said he could get no contact on his sounder. So we called him in closer to us. Then he said he did have a contact. She was 1.47 miles from the Tuskar’’ (east-north-east).

Billy continued; ‘’One day I brought Thomas McKenna, the Commander in Chief of the Irish Navy, out to the ‘’Uplifter’’ (a Royal Navy salvage ship). They were going to haul the forward section of the plane and they had plastic bags to put all the bodies in. But they never lifted her. The tides were too strong. 247 feet of water and the spring tides running up to six knots. The divers came up sick and suffering from the bends. They couldn’t take statements from them for hours after. Some of them said they saw bodies down there sitting in the seats. And the plane was all burst open inside’’. Amongst the bodies identified by the divers, still strapped into their seats at the controls in their white short-sleeved shirts, were those of Captain O’Beirne and First Officer Heffernan.

A newspaper report at the time read; ‘’If the forward section of fuselage of the crashed Viscount plane cannot be recovered before next Wednesday, the attempt will have to be postponed for another month until the tides off Wexford are suitable, and the British ships will return to base’’.

During the third and final attempt to life the forward section, it broke in two and the bodies and wreckage were scattered about down on the sea-bed, never to be recovered. The British ships stopped searching for wreckage on August 21st, while trawlers continued a reduced hunt until government funds ran out on October 5th. All recovered parts of the plane were reassembled inside a giant hangar at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, which constituted almost 50% of the entire aircraft by October 1968.

In July of the following year a small amount of money was grudgingly granted by the Irish government, and Billy Bates spent the following two months searching for more wreckage in his fathers new trawler, the ‘’Thomas McDonagh’’. He successfully recovered a considerable number of valuable items from the depth, using only a trawl net. With great skill and seamanship he lifted an entire section of the vertical tail fin, followed by part of the starboard main spar boom, the fourth and final missing engine, fuselage skin pieces, the nose-wheel bracing structure, sections of flap, radio racks, some baggage, and other smaller items. In Baldonnel 62% of the plane was finally reassembled.

With the last engine recovered it was now clear that all four engines and propellers had been intact when the plane entered the sea. The pilot had selected ‘’flight fine pitch’’ on the propeller blades to create maximum drag as he attempted to lessen the imminent crash forces. As Mike Reynolds wrote; ‘’If a continuous all-out effort with a realistic budget had been made in the immediate months following the location of the wreck, then the outcome could have been very different and the cause of the crash might have been quickly determined’’. If only.

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SUMMATION

Why Animo did not decide to make ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy’’ into a proper investigation as to the true cause of the crash is a total mystery. Its interviews with relatives of a number of the people who died on the plane were well done, and make for interesting viewing. Its interviews with some others are mainly a rehashing of the drone conspiracy theory, or of the Royal Navy’s cover-up theory. Obviously both theories are interconnected, but have been completely disproven by the 2002 Report. Despite that, in the documentary the drone and Royal Navy theories are repeated over and over.

There are so many obvious errors in the Shannon ATC radio transcript that it simply cannot be accepted as authentic. Who within government and Aer Lingus decided to ignore the forty-six witness’s who saw a passenger plane in distress over three southern counties, and come up with a phony transcript so as to transpose EI-AOM close to the Welsh coast in order to place the blame on a target drone, instead of the awful maintenance record, will probably never be known at this remove. But that is exactly what happened. On the night of the crash the midnight oil must have burned for a very long time, possibly all night, in Leinster House, the Department of Transport and Power, and Aer Lingus headquarters, as deep thoughts were thought and plans were hatched. Following the appearance of the 2002 Report, it was well known in certain circles which government department, and even the name of the person within that department, who came up with the ‘’sightseeing’’ story.

The initial investigation was headed by the same person who had approved the Certificate of Airworthiness for the plane, a document that had been based on defective paperwork, and also on maintenance records known to have been missing at the time of issue. There had been dreadful over-runs in the mandatory compliance periods between inspections of various components of EI-AOM, which were revealed in a secret review immediately after the crash, but were not mentioned in the 1970 Report. It did however push the drone theory.

On November 25th 1970 the Inspector of Accidents wrote to Aer Lingus releasing the plane-wreckage into its custody. Prior to that lawyers for some of the passengers and some crew members had attempted to gain access to Casement Aerodrome for a technical inspection of the partially reconstructed plane, but had been refused, claiming that it was a private matter for the minister responsible. In the letter of the 25th it was stated that none of the previously interested parties had made any further contact. Surprise, surprise, after having already being blankly refused! Aer Lingus agreed that it would retain the remains of EI-AOM until January, but actually scrapped it within a few days, claiming afterwards that their action had been inadvertent.

Its unlikely that the relatives of flight 712’s passengers and crew were happy with the Animo documentary, any more than they had been with the 1970 Report. On the other hand when the 2002 investigation team took into account the statements from forty-six witness’s who had previously been ignored, and came up with the true flight-path of EI-AOM on that day, together with timings, we were into a completely new ball-game. Of course that Report has also had its fair share of critics, but there are always people with vested interests. Some may even have worked for Aer Lingus previously, or have relations or friends who did. The one-eyed man is King in the land of the blind.

As Peter Walls comments in the documentary, son of passenger Dessy Walls; ‘’The 1970 Report was a joke’’. David O’Beirne, son of EI-AOM’s Captain Bernard O’Beirne, had this to say; ‘’Every time those theories grew legs, it was tough’’. Celine, a relative of Eileen Gallivan and her children Marion and Paula, commented; ‘’Maybe we should know a bit more’’. Ann Kelly and Mary Coughlan were the two airline stewardesses on board flight 712, and Mary had changed shifts with a colleague who wanted that particular day off. Ann was Dublin born but lived with her paternal grandparents in Wexford town, proprietors of ‘’Kelly’s Bakery’’ on Main Street. Her body was recovered from the sea. Ann’s three sisters, Mary, Hilda and Margaret, were not happy when they learned about the missing maintenance records. Des Heffernan, brother of First Officer Paul Heffernan, does not accept the drone theory, nor any theory for that matter.

Clare Walls Cole, daughter of Dessy Walls and Peter’s sister, made an interesting comment during her interview. Her fathers brother Arthur was Assistant General Manager of Aer Lingus in 1968, and Clare had this to say; ‘’He told me on that first week, he said the only theory we have is that a bit of metal fell on the plane and broke the connection to the tail........It could have been a bit of metal out of the toilet. We have no idea’’.

Close to the end of the documentary there is a quote from the 2002 Report which acknowledges that it had been ‘’a major achievement for the crew to be able to keep this aircraft flying for more than half an hour with such poor manoeuvrability characteristics. This showed a remarkable intrinsic and professional level of experience. It is equitable to acknowledge such a performance’’. However, with ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy’’ accepting the original story that EI-AOM did not encounter any difficulties until just prior to its radio contact with London ATC between 1058.02 and 1058.10 GMT, and apparently also accepting the idea that the plane entered the water some minutes later, how could it acknowledge that the pilots had kept the ‘’aircraft flying for more than half an hour’’? Even if we stretch the entry time up to ten minutes, that’s a long way from over half an hour.

When the relatives of the crash-victims were taken to the crash-site in order to pay their respects on the 50th anniversary in 2018, on board an Irish Navy ship, the event was filmed and later included in the Animo documentary. It was both a sad and joyful occasion. The interviews with the relatives was an important part of the programme, but as a piece of investigative journalism ‘’The Tuskar Rock Tragedy’’ is a tragedy in itslef.

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(Research for this article included the 1970 Report, the 2002 Report, the Mike Reynolds book ‘’Tragedy At Tuskar Rock’’, plus numerous articles and newspaper reports. Many thanks to Billy Bates and his wife Diana for their hospitality and time. Thanks also to the staff of Wexford Library for showing me newspapers of the day, and a number of relevant books.)

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Copyright Ron Walsh 2004