R116 rescue mission ‘the most challenging and most difficult’

ADJOURNMENT  Mary and John Fitzpatrick and their daughter Niamh, parents and sister of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, leaving Belmullet Courthouse after the inquests into the deaths of the crew members of Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 116. Pic: Keith Heneghan

Anton McNulty

One of the chief investigators involved in the search and rescue mission in the aftermath of the R116 targedy has spoken of the extreme challenges he and his colleagues faced.
The preliminary inquest into the deaths of four Irish Coast Guard crew on board the R116 helicopter, which crashed off the Erris coast last year, opened last Thursday in Belmullet Courthouse.
The four air crew – Captain Dara Fitzpatrick and Captain Mark Duffy, and winch crew Paul Ormsby and CiarΡn Smith – died in the crash at Blackrock Island, 13km west of the Mullet Peninsula in the early hours of March 14, 2017. The bodies of Paul Ormsby and CiarΡn Smith were not found.
Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) Chief Inspector Jurgen Whyte told the inquest in his two decades as head of search and rescue with the Air Corps, this particular mission, which involved a number of agencies, was ‘the most challenging and most difficult’.
He described how the The Sikorsky S-92 helicopter was lying ‘literally between a rock and a hard place’, between Blackrock Island and a smaller rock known as Parrot Island. The helicopter’s tail was found on Blackrock Island, but there were no personal items among the wreckage. This led the search team to believe that three crew members had remained within the confines of the helicopter on impact.
The search teams were tireless in their efforts to locate the missing crew. “In my opinion, everything that could be done was done under very challenging conditions,” Whyte said.

Recoveries
The inquest heard that the body of Capt Dara Fitzpatrick was recovered from the water by the RNLI Achill Lifeboat at a location southeast of Blackrock Island at 2.37am, just under two hours after the last recorded contact with Rescue 116.
RNLI Achill Lifeboat Coxswain David Curtis described how she appeared to be lifeless in the water and how after 25 minutes of CPR they took the decision to stop. The R118 and R115 helicopters were tasked to take part in the search and were joined by the Ballyglass Lifeboat.
Capt Fitzpatrick’s body was taken by R115 to Mayo University Hospital and the postmortem performed by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan found the cause of Capt Fitzpatrick’s death was due to drowning, with no contributory factors.
Naval Service Chief Petty Officer and diver Courtney Gibbons told the inquest how he and colleague Leading Seaman Donal O’Sullivan had recovered the body of co-pilot Capt Mark Duffy from the helicopter wreckage on March 26 in about 36 metres of water some 100m from Blackrock Island.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis performed the postmortem, which found that Capt Duffy had died from multiple injuries sustained in the helicopter crash, and that death would have been almost instant.
The Coronor, Dr Eleanor Fitzgerald, confirmed the cause of death for Mr Ormsby and Mr Smith as being ‘lost at sea’.

Emotional tributes
During the inquest, emotional tributes were paid to the four crew members by their families, Niamh Fitzpatrick, sister of Capt Fitzpatrick, described how she ‘lived her short life to the full’ with an emphasis on ‘values, such as kindness and integrity’.
“Rescuing people was so important to Dar, and she was very proud to be able to do this most challenging job and bring people home when they got into difficulties on land or sea,” she said.
In statements read by Garda Sinéad Barrett, winch operator Paul Ormsby was remembered by his family as a ‘loving, heart-warming man whose jokes could brighten you up on your worst days’.  His colleague, CiarΡn Smith was described as ‘a family man, a loving husband and an amazing dad’, who had achieved so much during his time with the Air Corp and Irish Coast Guard.
Following a request from Inspector Gary Walsh, Dr Fitzgerald adjourned the inquest to allow for the completion of the AAIU investigation and of a joint Garda/Health and Safety Authority investigation.