Scots tycoon and his family die in helicopter crash
A MILLIONAIRE property developer couple were among five members of the same family killed in a helicopter crash in mountains, friends said last night.
Scots-born Kevin Burke and his wife Ruth were travelling from their Buckinghamshire farmhouse to Ireland when the Twin Squirrel helicopter came down in a remote location in Snowdonia.
Search teams took nearly a day to find the wreckage after scouring a huge potential crash zone stretching from North Wales out into the Irish Sea.
They were also hampered by atrocious weather conditions and hazardous terrain.
Mr Burke, 56, was a qualified pilot, although it was not clear last night if he was at the controls when the helicopter went down as the area was battered by gales and heavy rain that cut visibility to less than ten yards.
The three other people on board had not been officially named yesterday but friends and posts on social media named them as Mr Burke’s brothers Barry, 51, and Donald, 55, and Donald’s wife, Sharon. One report
‘Six children have lost their parents’
said the helicopter was due to refuel in Wales before heading for Ireland where the family were expected at a christening.
A family spokesman said: ‘Six children have lost their parents in this tragedy. The family wants to grieve over this terrible loss and concentrate on looking after the children.’
Mr Burke, who was born in Stranraer, Wigtownshire, and his 47-year-old wife, who came from Dublin, lived in a gated estate just outside Milton Keynes. Three helicopters were parked there yesterday.
He and his wife had a 19-year-old daughter Jess and a son, Jamie, 14.
One family friend said: ‘They are distraught. They are trying to come to terms with the loss of their parents.’ Another added: ‘The entire family has been wiped out.’
Family friend Paul Dawes, of Over Peover, Cheshire, said: ‘Kevin and Ruth were aboard with extended members of the family. They’ll never make anyone like Kevin again.’
Mr and Mrs Burke are understood to have developed a string of properties in Buckinghamshire.
The red helicopter they were in was registered to their company, Staske Construction Ltd. It took off from the farmhouse on Wednesday afternoon and was heading towards Weston Airport, outside Dublin, when it disappeared near Trawsfynydd.
The alarm was raised when it failed to arrive at its destination and a search was launched at 4.15pm.
Two UK Coastguard search and rescue helicopters were scrambled to search the area between Caernarfon and the Dublin shore.
The search was called off just before midnight due to poor weather conditions and resumed yesterday morning. Meanwhile, seven mountain rescue teams and a dog search team co-ordinated by North Wales Police were drafted in to Snowdonia National Park. Air support was not available because of poor visibility.
Just before lunchtime yesterday, the wreckage of the helicopter was found, along with the bodies of those on board, on the Rhinog mountains, between Trawsfynydd and Harlech.
Air traffic controllers said there was ‘no indication’ that it experienced ‘any difficulty at any time’, indicating that no one radioed for help. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating.
The Airbus-made Eurocopter AS55 Ecureuil II, also known as the Twin Squirrel, is a twin-engined aircraft with a reputation for durability. It has a range of 440 miles.
Champion rally driver Colin McRae was at the controls of a Twin Squirrel with his son Johnny, five, and friend Ben Porcelli, six, when it crashed at his Lanarkshire home in 2007, killing all three.