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Flags fly half-mast outside Cork University Hospital last year following the air crash. Laura Hutton / Photocall Ireland
Anniversary
No official memorial for crash victims at Cork Airport
Today marks the first anniversary of the plane crash which claimed the lives of six passengers at Cork Airport.
THERE WILL BE no official ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the air disaster which claimed the lives of six people at Cork Airport on this day last year.
A spokesperson for the airport advised TheJournal.ie that “there is no official event planned to mark the upcoming anniversary on 10 February”.
However, a special mass will be held at Ballyphehane this morning to mark the occasion. The airport’s chaplain Fr Michael Murphy will be the celebrant. The parish priest for the area (which incorporates the airport), Fr Murphy administered the last rites to the victims at the scene of the accident.
No officials from the airport will be present at the mass unless they attend in a personal capacity, the spokesperson advised.
Cork City Council also told TheJournal.ie that no official event had been organised to remember the deceased.
Six people died and six others survived when a Manx2 plane travelling from Belfast to Cork crashed on its third attempt to land at the airport.
It was reported earlier this week that the five men and one woman who survived the disaster are to meet on Friday to mark the first anniversary. The private event will be held at an undisclosed location, according to the Irish Daily Mirror.
A documentary taking a look back at the fateful day will be aired on TG4 on Sunday night from 9.30pm. Tubaiste Manx Air i gCorcaigh will feature interviews with some of the survivors and archive footage of the emergency services response to the crash.
Recalling memories of the landing, survivor Donal Walsh describes:
I looked out the window and I saw that the wing was on fire…I knew I had to find a means of escape.
The tragic story of the pilot who had previously regularly flown the same aircraft – but who changed jobs just five days before the crash – will also be told. Oliver Lee took his own life last April after months of struggling with the news of the day’s tragedy.
The Open Eye documentary will also hear vivid accounts from firefighter Tadgh O Mathúna as he remembers arriving on the scene.
Fr Michael Murphy set up base at a temporary field hospital and describes the “feeling of horror, bewilderment and amazement at these young people who were no more…It was awful.”
An interim report into the air crash was released on Tuesday. It identified a fault with a sensor on one of the plane’s engines but the investigation is ongoing.
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