Section from an update issued by the AAIU this evening :
Furthermore, the AAIU has visited Black Rock Light House, on the approaches to Blacksod bay, which is close to the last recorded position of the helicopter. Some helicopter wreckage has been recovered from the general area of Black Rock Light House. This wreckage is primarily from the tail area of the helicopter. At this early stage in the investigation it is not possible to be definitive about the exact nature of damage to the recovered wreckage or indeed the circumstances of the accident. However, there appears to be marks on some of the recovered wreckage which are consistent with the tail of the aircraft contacting rocky surfaces on the Western end of Blackrock.
I heard one rumour that they possibly put the wrong place into their navigation system ( Blackrock instead of Black Sod). Would it be possible for something like that to happen.
It would I guess but then if they knew they were approaching what they thought was blacksod why were they travelling at speed? Last indicated speed was 90knts. What’s known now is that the helicopter crashed into the rock, why remains to be seen. Blackrock is not marked on a good number of ordinance survey maps, whether it was marked on their navigation system will tell a lot about what happened here. The cloud base on the night of the accident was 300ft, the height of blackrock is 300 ft. It’s plausible that on the approach to blacksod they went below cloud cover to gain visual on their approach and without blackrock being identified on their nav they collided with the rock.
You’d imagine so but I don’t know how familiar this crew would have been with the area. This was a Dublin based helicopter carrying out a mission off the west coast.
There’s only four rescue crews in the country; Sligo, Shannon, Dublin and Waterford (i think). They regularly assist each other on missions and have to switch bases to provide individual cover when crew members are on leave etc - unlikely that they wouldn’t be at least familiar with the area, especially given how experienced Capt Fitzpatrick was.
