SLIGO LINK TO PLANE CRASH
THE naton’s first air disaster has been remembered in a new book penned by Sligo author Gavin Walsh.
All 20 passengers and three crew members died on Thursday evening 10 th January 1952, when the St Kevin Aer Lingus ‘Dakota’ plane crashed into a mountain top in Snowdonia National Park in Wales.
It was bound for Dublin from London and hit a winter storm of gale force winds, violent turbulence and freezing temperatures.
Captain James Richard Keohane piloted the plane - he was brother of J.M. Keohane, newsagent on Castle Street, Sligo.
One of the only intact items recovered from the wreckage included a child’s doll.
Among the rescue party were two Irishmen - Senior Aircraftsman Willie Redmond of Cabra, Dublin and Senior Aircraftsman Christopher McCrann, of Garavogue Villas, Sligo, who were both in the RAF.
McCrann was only unpacking his bags after returning from Ireland when he was called to the scene in Caernarvonshire from Valley Airfield Wales.
At 10pm that Thursday night he and 17 other members of the Mountain Rescue Squad were on the mountain.
“It was an awful sight - and worse than anything we had expected,” he told The Sligo Champion in January 1952.
It was early Saturday before all the remains were recovered from the “Graveyard of the Air” as it’s known locally because of the 30 planes crashed there in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s.
“I’d rather run up and down Benbulben than have to go through that job again. But it had to be done. It gets very personal when you know that there are some of your own people involved,” he said.
Another victim was Ms Evelyn Belton from Longford, a second cousin of local Scooter’s Creche and Montessori proprietor Catríona Belton.
The book was launched in the Crozon Inn by Gavin Walsh and relatives of the victims.