Aer Lingus Flight 712
Encyclopedia
Flight 712, operated by Aer Lingus
Aer Lingus
Aer Lingus Group Plc is the flag carrier of Ireland. It operates a fleet of Airbus aircraft serving Europe and North America. It is Ireland's oldest extant airline, and its second largest after low-cost rival Ryanair...

 crashed en route from Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...

 to London on 24 March 1968 killing 61 passengers and crew. The plane, a Vickers Viscount
Vickers Viscount
The Vickers Viscount was a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs, making it the first such aircraft to enter service in the world...

 803 named "St. Phelim", crashed into the sea off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford
County Wexford
County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...

. Although the investigation into the crash lasted two years, a cause was never determined. There has long been popular speculation that the aircraft was shot down by a British experimental missile. Aberporth
Aberporth
Aberporth is a community and small town in Ceredigion on the west coast of Wales. The population was 2,485 in 2001.- Location :The town lies at the southern end of Cardigan Bay about six miles north of Cardigan and ten miles south of New Quay approximately one mile west of the A487, on the...

 in West Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 was at the time the most advanced British missile testing station.

Crash

The flight left Cork Airport at 10.32 hours for London. The flight proceeded normally until a call was heard with the probable contents "twelve thousand feet descending spinning rapidly". There was no further communications with the aircraft and London ATC informed Shannon ATC that they had no radio contact with EI-AOM. London ATC requested Aer Lingus Flight EI 362 (flying Dublin-Bristol) to search west of Strumble. This search at 500 ft (152.4 m) in good visibility saw nothing. At 11.25 a full alert was declared. By 12.36 there was a report of wreckage sighted at position 51º 57' N, 06º 10' W. Searching aircraft found nothing and the report cancelled. Aircraft and ships from the UK resumed the search the following day and "wreckage was sighted and bodies recovered" 6 nautical miles (11.1 km) north-east of Tuskar Rock with more wreckage scattered "for a further 6 nautical miles north-west".

Thirteen bodies were recovered over the next few days. Another body was recovered later.
The main wreckage was located on the sea bed by trawling 1.72 nautical miles (3.2 km) from Tuskar Rock at 39 fathoms.

Aircraft

The aircraft was a Vickers Viscount 803
Vickers Viscount
The Vickers Viscount was a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs, making it the first such aircraft to enter service in the world...

 which flew under tail-number EI-AOM and had been in service since 1957 with a total of 18,806 lifetime flight hours. Aer Lingus operated approximately 20 Viscount aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s, of which two others were involved in serious incidents. The year before the Tuskar Rock crash, in June 1967, an 803 Viscount on a training flight crashed (due to a stall) with the loss of 3 crew lives. Also in 1967, in September, an 808 Viscount was damaged beyond repair during a crash landing (due to pilot error in fog) that caused no serious casualties.

Flight crew

The crew of EI-AOM Flight 712 were Captain Bernard 'Barney' O'Beirne, 35, who had joined Aer Lingus after three years in the Air Corps. His total flying time was 6,683 hours, 1,679 of them on Viscounts. He was endorsed for command on Viscount aircraft and passed a medical in January 1968. The First Officer was Paul Heffernan, 22, who had training with Airwork Services Training at Perth and joined Aer Lingus in 1966. That year, he received an Irish Commercial Pilots licence with Viscount endorsement and instrument rating. His total flying time was 1,139 hours, of which 900 was on Viscounts.

Casualties

All 61 persons aboard the aircraft died. The majority of the passengers were Irish (35), the remainder being Swiss (9), Belgian (6), British (5) and American (2).

Investigation

An investigation report was produced in 1970. A review was undertaken between 1998 and 2000. An independent study was commissioned in 2000.

Cause

In the years since the crash several witnesses have come forward with evidence to support the missile theory, including a crew member of the British ship HMS Penelope
HMS Penelope (F127)
HMS Penelope was a of the Royal Navy. Like other ships of the class, Penelope was named after a figure of mythology. HMS Penelope was launched on 17 August 1962 and commissioned on 31 October 1963...

. He claims that part of the wreckage that was recovered by Penelope was secretly removed to the UK.

However, in 2002 a review process conducted by the AAIU (Air Accident Investigation Unit) disclosed that Aer Lingus paperwork relating to a routine maintenance inspection carried out on the aircraft in December 1967 was found to be missing in 1968. Moreover, a large body of research was done by the investigators after the accident regarding the maintenance operating plan used for EI-AOM and defects on the aircraft found during analysis of the maintenance records. This research was not referred to in the 1970 report. A new board of investigation was set up by the Irish government
Irish Government
The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...

 and found that the crash was the consequence of a chain of events starting with a failure to the left tail-plane caused by metal fatigue, corrosion, flutter or a bird strike
Bird strike
A bird strike—sometimes called birdstrike, avian ingestion , bird hit, or BASH —is a collision between an airborne animal and a man-made vehicle, especially aircraft...

, with the most likely cause being a flutter-induced fatigue failure of the elevator trim tab operating mechanism.

In March 2007 Retired RAF Squadron Leader Eric Evers who was previously chief flying instructor with the British military in RAF Little Rissington
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Little Rissington is an RAF aerodrome and former RAF station in Gloucestershire, England. It was once home to the Central Flying School, the Vintage Pair and the Red Arrows.Built during the 1930s, the station was opened in 1938 and closed in 1994...

, made a claim that the accident was in fact caused by a mid-air collision between the Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount and a French-built military aircraft which was training with the Irish Air Corps
Irish Air Corps
The Air Corps is the air component of the Defence Forces of Ireland providing support to the Army and Naval Service, together with non-military air services such as search and rescue and the Ministerial Air Transport Service...

 . Squadron Leader Evers maintains that he has evidence to prove that a Fouga Magister
Fouga Magister
The Fouga Magister is a 1950s French two-seat jet trainer. The related CM.175 Zéphyr was a carrier-capable version for the French Navy....

 trainer accidentally collided with the Aer Lingus aircraft as it was responding to a request to check the status of the Viscount's undercarriage, which had failed to lock in position correctly. All 61 people, including the four crew, on board the Aer Lingus Viscount Cork-London Heathrow flight were lost in the subsequent crash off Tuskar Rock, but according to Sqn Leader Evers information, the two pilots in the trainer survived by ejecting and parachuting to safety. Sqn Leader Evers maintains that both the French and Irish authorities colluded in a subsequent cover-up, and the Fouga Magister
Fouga Magister
The Fouga Magister is a 1950s French two-seat jet trainer. The related CM.175 Zéphyr was a carrier-capable version for the French Navy....

 wreckage may still be on the seabed off the Co Wexford coast.

Eric Evers' claims have been disputed by Capt Mike Reynolds, retired sea captain and aviator and author of Tragedy at Tuskar Rock, published in 2003. Capt Reynolds upholds the findings of the 2002 official report by French and Australian experts which ruled out the possibility that the Viscount was hit by another aircraft or missile. The international study, on which he worked as Irish assistant, concluded that the cause may have been as a result of structural failure of the aircraft, corrosion, metal fatigue, "flutter" or bird strike.

An Irish Defence Forces
Irish Defence Forces
The armed forces of Ireland, known as the Defence Forces encompass the Army, Naval Service, Air Corps and Reserve Defence Force.The current Supreme Commander of the Irish Defence forces is His Excellency Michael D Higgins in his role as President of Ireland...

 spokesman described the claims of Squadron Leader Evers as "spurious" and said there was no evidence that an Irish Air Corps plane was in the vicinity at the time. That Fouga Magister did not "come into service" with the Irish Air Corps
Irish Air Corps
The Air Corps is the air component of the Defence Forces of Ireland providing support to the Army and Naval Service, together with non-military air services such as search and rescue and the Ministerial Air Transport Service...

 until 1976. However he could not comment on why a Fouga Magister was listed as one of the Air Corps aircraft in service in 1968, as stated in appendix 5.2.g of the 2002 report.

See also

  • Manx2 Flight 7100
    Manx2 Flight 7100
    Manx2 Flight 7100 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Cork, Republic of Ireland. On 10 February 2011, the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner 3 operating the route crashed on its third attempted landing at Cork Airport, killing six of the twelve people on...

    , a 2011 crash that was the deadliest Irish aviation incident since Aer Lingus Flight 712

External links

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