Flight EI712 - Celtic League campaigns for truth

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Aircrash casefile

EI-712 - British protests have a hollow ring - 21-03-98

 The Aer Lingus Viscount, with sixty one people on board, crashed mysteriously from 18,000 feet close to the British missile test site at Aberporth.

 In their latest rebuttal however the British are once again moving the goal posts. They now insist that the British missile range was closed only on the day of the crash. Six years ago they were emphatic that the range was closed "for the weekend 23/24 March". This statement by junior Defence Secretary Kenneth Carlisle has since been proven inaccurate and Aberporth certainly was operational into part of the 23rd.

 Let us therefore consider those facts which are not shrouded in ambiguity.:

 Sorry, Mr. Robertson, but there are still too many unanswered questions about the loss of EI 712 and your ministry's possible involvement!

Further evidence implicating missile testing - Feb. 1998

 This March sees the thirtieth anniversary of one of the most mysterious and serious air crashes to have occurred over the Irish sea. On the morning of March 24 1968 an Aer Lingus airliner crashed near Tuskar Rock. All 61 on board died.The involvement of the British missile range at Aberporth has long been attributed to the crash, but despite substantial circumstantial evidence the British maintain their story that the range was not operational on the day.

 The Celtic League have been assessing and exploring peripheral evidence and once again the trail leads back to Aberporth.

 In the analysis and conclusions of the official Irish government enquiry published in June 1970, much attention focused on the evidence of eye witnesses. It was clear from this evidence that two aircraft were present in the area on the day. One aircraft seen very much further west of the impact location of the Viscount was described in some detail and it is this aircraft we have focused on.

 Witnesses variously describe the aircraft as travelling fast and having bright red colouring on wing tips, tail and fuselage. The colouring identification is crucial in that it does not equate with the green and white colouring of the Viscount airliner. Our research however indicates it was the colouring used on unmanned Meteor U Mk. 15 and U Mk. 16 target aircraft operated from Llanbedr in Wales and attached to the Aberporth test programme.

 Witnesses who saw the aircraft, over Fethard-on-Sea, which subsequently crashed also observed peculiarities in the aircraft. It appeared "partly enveloped in mist" or "as if on fire" but with no smoke. Again we have ascertained that the Meteor U Mk. 15 were fitted with small acquisition flares below the jet pipes and these, when operating would have created the effect observed.

 Finally in the context of this mystery aircraft, reference is made in the official report to debris in the sea off Fethard-on-Sea, many miles from the crash site of the Viscount aircraft. A vessel was also reported (although the official report was not able to identify it).

 In 1993, Deputy Hugh Byrne set down a question in the Dail in an attempt to clarify its identity, asserting that a British naval vessel was reputed to have recovered an object from the water. The Minister for Defence (David Andrews TD) denied any evidence of this. However, if a Meteor unmanned target had been in the area and had crashed, one of the standard procedures was for the range vessels to recover cameras which were mounted on the target aircraft. These recorded the progress of the missile test. Again our photographic evidence clearly shows the detachable camera pods fitted to a Meteor U Mk. 15 at the time.

 Meteor debris has since reportedly been recovered in this area which would indicate that at sometime, Llanbedr based target aircraft have strayed far from the Aberporth target containment area. This squares with other evidence uncovered by a South Wales journalist who found British government reports expressing concern that testing frequently strayed outside the target area. It also revealed that missiles had difficulty locking-on to target aircraft.

 If, as we now believe, a missile failed to lock-on to its target and instead locked-on to the Aer Lingus Viscount, that tragic accident may well have been recorded on the target aircrafts cameras, hence the scramble to remove debris from the sea many miles west of the crash site.

 The jury is still out on the crash of EI 712 and the tragic loss of 61 lives. The British government may believe that by stonewalling the issue, and with the passage of time it will be forgotten. But there are still many unanswered questions and the finger still points to British missile testing in that area at the time.

 Usefully for the Irish government, should it wish to reopen enquiries into this matter, the identification and service record of all the Meteor target aircraft at Llandedr will be well documented. Strangely, the official enquiry in 1970 did not ask for detail of the target aircraft or their deployment.

 If these records could be provided by the British government, it would be a start. The Celtic League are cynical enough to believe, however, that like certain crucial ships' log-books, they will have gone missing!

Call to honour enquiry pledge

 All sixty-one people died when the Viscount airliner plummeted from 18,000 feet near the Aberporth missile testing range. Delegates from the six Celtic countries and also representatives of Celtic expatriate groups were told that action by this present Irish government, provided it received reasonable cooperation from the British, could resolve the mystery.

 The riddle of the missing records from naval ships, in the area at the time, and also the question mark over the involvement of the MOD's Aberporth missile range would only be resolved by a new enquiry the meeting concluded. The Taoiseach had acknowledged (23/7/97) the communication, and enclosures, from the League and has referred the request to Public Enterprise Minister, Mrs. Mary O'Rourke, TD.

Irish Sea Airliner Tragedy - New enquiry promised - 24-03-96

 The Celtic League welcomes the news published in the Irish media that Fianna Fail have given a written committment to "conduct their own fresh investigation" into the crash of an Irish airliner almost thirty years ago.

UK almost certainly involved in airliner's loss

 The Viscount aircraft was on a routine flight from Cork to London. All 61 people, died when the aircraft lost contact with ATC and plunged from a height of 20,000 feet into the Irish sea. Over the years, despite continued speculation about the involvement of UK naval units aircraft and missile range activity, the UK remained silent. After continuous campaigning by organisations, such as our own, and individual relatives of those lost they did reveal information. Crucially some base logs covering several days appear to have been written up in a contemporaneous manner. Other key naval log books from Royal Navy units in the area of the crash, including ships attached to the missile base, cannot be found and the missile range safety vessel cannot be accounted for over the entire weekend of the crash.

 New information challenges a long held contention that voice tapes contain the last message from the aircraft and, instead, the theory is advanced that the message comes from a second mystery aircraft seen by witnesses to crash near the Saltee Islands some miles from where the wreckage of the airliner was found.

 The theory is given some credence by mysterious mayday messages picked up almost three hours after the airliner and its crew had perished. Ordinarily such rumours would carry little weight but on this occasion the Office commanding one of the rescue vessels at the scene (HMS Hardy) has apparently corroborated the story.

 Debris from a British Gloster Meteor aircraft was found near the Saltees Islands three years ago and the Celtic League is aware from its own research that the Meteor was used at the time to "shepherd" jindivik target drones from the base. Indeed aircraft of this type were in use from Llanbedr (the Aberporth support airfield) on March 22nd and the day after the crash March 25th. Also on the 25th extracts of logs in our possession show that a communications aircraft an Anson made a mystery trip to the north of Ireland, returning the same day.

Continued silence over air crashes -26-02-97

 Records have been lost or only recently declassified - Log Books have been lost - a strange serious of violent deaths has occurred - damage to military aircraft in the area is revealed years later.

 Throughout the Cold War period, western governments and NATO used every opportunity to highlight incidents in which the Soviets shot down military reconnaissance or unarmed civilian airliners. The most infamous incident involved the Soviets deliberate destruction of a Korean airliner in the 1980s although in the period from 1950, any incident for which the Soviets could be held culpable was exposed. More recently, Arab countries, particularly Libya, have been linked to the destruction of airliners and serious loss of life.

 Three crashes on which the NATO bloc are particularly silent, however, involve the loss of an Aer Lingus Viscount (Irish Airlines EI-712) airliner over the British Aberporth missile range in March 1968, the destruction of a Italian DC-9, near Sicily, in 1980 and the crash of a Norwegian airliner in north Norway in 1982. A total of 157 people died in the crashes.

 The Celtic League has been examining all three incidents and its conclusions are set out below:

 The United Kingdom is almost certainly involved in the loss of Irish airliner EI 712 near the Aberporth missile testing range on Sunday March 24, 1968.

 Equally disturbing is the loss of an Italian airliner off Sicily in June 1980, 77 passengers and four crew died in the incident. The aircraft a DC 9 was on an internal flight for the now defunct Italian domestic carrier Itavia from Bologna to Palermo. In this case, strong evidence points towards the involvement of US naval units in the area and there is considerable grounds to believe the aircraft was struck by a rogue missile fired from a US aircraft off the aircraft carrier Saratoga. In the case of the Itavia crash the accident deaths themselves have been followed over the years by a bizarre series of deaths: Up to 11 people connected to the crash investigation. These have not been natural deaths and many have died in violent or strange circumstances.

 An example was retired General Roberto Boemio, who was chief of staff of military air traffic control for southern Italy at the time of the crash . Records from tracking stations he controlled could have been crucial but, on the eve of one of a series of enquiries into the crash, Boemio was stabbed to death outside his home in Brussels in Jan. 1993. His death followed those of two key radar controllers: Capt. Maurizio Gari, head of radar control centre at Poggio Ballone, Pisa and an apparently fit man, died suddenly of heart failure in May, 1981 at the age of 32. Alberto Mari Dettori, radar controller, Poggio Ballone, was found dead hanging from a tree in March, 1987.

 The Norwegian airliner, which crashed at Mehamn in north Norway in 1982, was for many years believed to have been damaged by baggage falling out of a hold. This improbable suggestion was recently challenged when it was revealed that an RAF fighter on exercise in the area landed shortly after the incident with collision damage. The MOD have confirmed an aircraft was damaged but say the machine (one of four Harrier aircraft) suffered ricochet damage from fired munitions. They also discount claims that the aircraft may have been simulating attacks on the civil aircraft. Rather pompously, the MOD state RAF aircraft have never deliberately practised interceptions on civilian aircraft.

 The Celtic League recalls similar denials being issued in the 1980s about the British Royal Navy and allegations that its submarines were simulating attacks on small civilian surface vessels. An initial RN denial was exposed when photographic evidence suppoting the allegations was revealed.

 It is past time an that an International enquiry was held into these suspicious airliner crashes so that the mysterious deaths of the passengers and crew is explained.

 The Celtic League re-iterates its call for such an enquiry.

 J. B. Moffatt
General Secretary