as well as that with the elctrics already gone its possible the doors were locked and the windows werent working.
i dont see anything suspicious in what ive heard about this. the ramp was full of algae as the ferry was out of season, yerman the eye witness says the car was more or less submerged when he got there and the driver was roaring out the window. the baby was rescued by a swimmer.
all in a horrific episode and an awful way to die
we did a few experiments allright, obviously not driving a real car off a pier …
id say every mech eng student has done the same at some stage
its a scary way to go id imagine
slipways and piers are fking dangerous, the deepwater quay in cobh is frightening also as is the port in Foynes.
i cant tell whether this car was on a pier or whether it was close to a slipway, slipways in general are covered in seaweed and are below the waterline depending on the tide, ud break your fking neck on one
They had parked on the slip way to watch the sun set apparently.
It’s shocking that there was open access to the slip way given that the ferry is out of season. In Ballyhack they have a barrier preventing such access.
Cars should be fitted for hammers to break the glass in case of emergency as well. Something in the glovebox could have saved everyone’s life in this case.
A truly shocking incident, there’s a a dark cloud hanging over the county today,
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Phil Coulter’s sister drowned after a car was driven (deliberately, and not by her) off the same pier in 1985.
Scorn not her simplicity.
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christ… that’s horrific
It must have happened pretty quickly for no one to jump out of the car when it started to slip towards the water.
That’s what I can’t understand. I work with a guy from Buncrana and he said the tide was out at the time as well.
Sadly it sounds like the driver seemed to think he could drive out of the water before things escalated very quickly.
From the Google street view images it would appear that there was an adjustable barrier gate at the top of the slipway, the images are from September 2009 however and the barrier, if it is still there, clearly was not in place yesterday.
I am guessing that slipway ends in a sharp drop into deep water? Alot of the slipways I seen the worse that could happen is that you wheels sink into the sand but you would be able to get out of the car.
The eyewitness who was on the radio this morning was asked how long the whole incident unfolded over, and he said “ten minutes”.
Now perhaps the ordeal has played with his memory and all that but that seems like a very long time for such an incident. I would have been thinking two minutes or less for the whole thing to unfold.
Ten minutes? fuckin hell, how did no one react.
Lots of piers and slipways all over the country have 24hr access, complacency can be a dangerous thing around water.
Apparently it’s gone and that slipway is used for launching all sea faring vessels in Buncrana.
@Tassotti I’m not sure how deep it is but if the Ferry pulls up then it would have to be navigable no matter where the tide is.
The pier goes well out into Lough Swilly so yes you would imagine so.
10 minutes. I know there is terror and panic but I would like to think in that situation I would tell the other people in the car to get out as soon as it starts to slip and they at least give a try to get the car back up the slipway before bailing out yourself.
I find the wording of mainstream reports peculiar,in that there is a degree of ambiguity over the relationship of the victims to eachother.
Five people - a woman in her 50s, one of her daughters, the partner of another daughter and two children - died in the accident. A young baby was rescued.
Were the 2 children related to the mother? Who owned the baby?
Those who died were a woman (57), from the Shantallow area of Derry; her 15-year-old daughter; the 46-year-old partner of another daughter, who is originally from the Creggan area; and his two sons, aged eight and 12. The mother of the children had been on a “hen weekend” in England at the time of the tragedy.
I have seen reports where the woman in the car was the mother of the driver. The driver was the father of the kids. The mother of the kids was not with them as she was away in England. God love the poor woman having to comeback to this.
Just catching up on this thread since last night. It’s absolutely heartbreaking and horrible reading what may have happened. I can’t even imagine.
Too sad to to imagine: