WEATHERHAMPERSEFFORT
TRIBUTES CONTINUE TO MARK DUFFY AND THE RESCUE 116 CREW AS WEATHER SLOWS RECOVERY EFFORTS
Bad weather has today (Tuesday) continued to hamper the search for the three missing crew of the Irish Coastguard helicopter Rescue 116 - including Blackrock man Mark Duffy - as tributes continue to pour in for the lost heroes.
It is now just over a week since the Rescue 116 chopper, which is based at Dublin Airport, went missing close to Black Rock Lighthouse off the County Mayo coast. A huge search team is waiting for the weather to improve in order to search an area where a signal from the helicopter’s black box has been pinpointed.
Members of the Irish Coastguard, the navy, the Gardai, the Defence Forces, local fishermen, RNLI crews and a host of other groups have been working around the clock in order to be ready for a break in the weather to recommence the search and have prepared detailed maps and sonar scans of the area.
It had been hoped the weather conditions would allow a search to be carried out over the St Patrick’s Day holiday, but this didn’t happen and earlier today, those involved in co-ordinating the search for Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith following the crash, which also claimed the life of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, said it is unlikely that dives at the site will be possible today.
And the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) is beginning the long process of piecing together what may have happened to Rescue 116 during the early hours of last Tuesday morning.
The AAIU’s chief inspector Jurgen Whyte told RTE Radio 1’s Morning Ireland: ‘We can 100% confirm that there was no contact with any of the lighthouse or the building itself.
‘If the aircraft has glanced off the rock there may not necessarily be a significant mark but certainly we have picked up additional wreckage in an area of interest.
‘We found a number of the items had scouring, which would indicate that the aircraft had some form of solid impact with a solid structure in the tail section of the aircraft itself.
‘ To get definitive answers to this we again have to refer to the fact that we need to get the recorders, the black box and hopefully that will give us additional information about what was happening’.
Meanwhile, Gerry Lambe, the vice principal of St Mary’s College, where Mark was a student, paid tribute to the Blackrock father of two.
Mr Lambe said: ‘ Mark was an excellent student while attending the Marist College. He had a great application to his work, always treated staff with the highest respect and was extremely popular with fellow students.
‘It comes as no surprise his career involved helping others as he was a great fund raiser for charities whilst in the College. Indeed he maintained his connections, landing his helicopter on the playing fields some years ago for the students. Mark comes from a very fine respectable business family in Dundalk and our thoughts and prayers are with them at this most difficult time’.
The plight of the Rescue 116 crew is felt particularly among members of the coast guard and rescue services.
‘It’s a collective devastation,’ said James Larkin, officer in charge of Greenore Coastguard. ‘Mark was such a nice fellow. No one had a bad word to say about him.’
He said he first met Mark when he brought the coast guard helicopter to the Marist in 2008 and had met him many times since, both on training exercises and rescue missions, as recent as the previous weekend in the Cooley mountains.
‘ The 116 helicopter was a great comfort to anyone involved in a rescue, not just the casualty but also the rescue teams as we knew all the safety precautions were in place and the casualty would be brought to hospital as quickly as possible.’
The local coast guard volunteers who attended the vigil in Blackrock were humbled by the enormous outpouring of sympathy. Mr Larkin said: ‘ The helicopter crews go out in the worst weather, the worst conditions, to the worst places, and are always a great comfort to us all.’