Air India disaster saw Cork's emergency services rally to deal with the aftermath
Air India wreckage being brought ashore on October 31, 1985. One air traffic official at Shannon said of Air India 182: ‘One second it was there and the next it had gone. It was like suddenly losing a telephone line.’
There was nothing to indicate on the morning of Sunday, June 23, 1985, that the day would be different to any other at what was then known as the Regional Hospital at Wilton in Cork city.
Staff went about their normal duties in providing care and treatment for the patients in what is now University Hospital Cork.
Breakfast was served as usual. Hospital administrators planned for another busy week ahead. The usual Sunday visitors were expected in the afternoon. And there was a lot of discussion about the week-end sporting events.
But, within hours, Cork Regional Hospital and Ireland as a nation had to suddenly cope with the aftermath of the world’s deadliest act of aviation terrorism before the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 claimed over 3,000 lives.
A bomb placed on board Air India flight 182 by Sikh militants exploded off the Kerry/west Cork coast and plunged it into the Atlantic.
All 329 passengers and crew were killed. They were from Canada, India, Britain, and other places. Over 80 of them were children.
A major accident plan was activated at 11 am. When it was confirmed that there were no survivors from the disaster, the hospital’s role in the emergency changed.
It became a centre for the reception and identification of bodies, post-mortem examinations, the provision of care and comfort for grieving relatives and information for the world’s press.
Over 100 hospital staff turned up voluntarily to help. A gymnasium was converted into a temporary morgue. Plans were made to ensure each body was allocated a number on arrival. A control room was set up to deal with inquiries.
Seven teams under Dr John Harbison, State Pathologist, and Professor C. T. Doyle, the hospital’s chief pathologist, were organised. Garda technical staff were also deployed to work with the pathologists and their assistants.
Rooms were prepared for the relatives of the victims, with press and medical co-ordinator Dr Michael Molloy explaining that the Friends of Cork Regional Hospital and lots of other people had also offered accommodation and help.
Anne Sheehan, a medical scientist at CUH, later recalled how staff members worked after hours to deal with the emergency and helped those in other departments.
The first Sea King helicopter touched down at Cork Airport at 3.01 pm. The bodies of three women and a teenage girl were removed.
Later in the day, under a menacing grey sky, the Irish naval vessel LÉ Aisling arrived at its base in Haulbowline with further bodies recovered from the sea.
Doctors and nurses examined the remains before they were removed with respect and dignity to the Regional Hospital by the Army.
The support and sympathy shown by the people of Cork to the relatives of the crash victims was also noted by journalist Leslie Plummer from the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail:
“When the relatives emerged from the identification ordeal at the hospital, their praise for the Irish authorities and grief councillors was almost universal.
"A Sikh from Delhi, who lost his 20-year-old daughter, said: 'The Irish have been very co-operative, very nice, generous and helpful. We cannot expect more from them.'
"Both at the airport and the hospital, it was common to see Irish reception staff with an arm around a lone relative.”
The small acts of kindness shown to the relatives of the victims, mostly by the ordinary people of Cork and especially by the Gardai, under Chief Superintendent Frank Keaney, were widely praised.
Mrs Razai Doshi, wife of the Indian Ambassador to Ireland, recalled that some Gardai even came in on their day off to care for families.
Everyone at the Regional was kind and good, she said, describing as excellent the work of the hospital and the Gardai in identifying 99.3% of the bodies recovered, compared with the usual 80% to 85% recorded in other similar tragedies.
Mrs Doshi told how an Air India 182 purser, Kamal Saha, had told his daughter he would bring home a big doll for her second birthday.
Someone later presented an urn with his ashes to his grieving widow with one hand, and with the other he handed her a doll for the little girl – it had been recovered from the wreckage.
Stories were also told of taxi drivers refusing to take fares, how people opened their homes to visitors of different cultures and faiths from faraway places and how there were many examples of compassion, kindness, and sensitivity.
Earlier that Sunday morning, air traffic controllers at Shannon were routinely busy with 30 to 40 aircraft flying eastbound into Europe.
One was an Air India Boeing 737 travelling at about 600 miles per hour from Montreal in Canada to Bombay in India, with a schedule stop for refuelling at London Heathrow. It was flying at 31,000 feet and in radio and radar contact.
It reported at 8.07 local time that the plane was on course, and all was normal. It was the last voice contact. Six minutes later the aircraft had vanished from the radar screen, about 120 miles off the south-west coast.
Shannon Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre director Joe Kerin said there was no ‘May Day’ call from the plane to indicate there was an emergency.
The crews and passengers on two other flights - one six miles ahead of the Air India Jumbo, the other 20 miles behind - had not heard or seen anything that would have suggested something was wrong.
All attempts to contact the plane, which was on schedule and due to touch down at Heathrow one hour and forty minutes later, were unsuccessful. “It was just a blank and there was silence,” said controller Hugh O’Connor.
A major emergency was declared. A massive search and rescue operation was immediately launched under the control of the Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Shannon.
All aircraft flying in the vicinity were alerted and so were all nearby ships, fishing trawlers and oil rig vessels. Many changed course and joined the search.
Air Traffic Services, the Air Corps, the Naval Service, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and the United States Air Force were involved. RNLI lifeboats from Valentia, Courtmacsharry, Baltimore and Ballycotton were launched.
Land-based services such as Shannon Aeradio (Ballygirreen), Valentia Coast Station, the Meteorological Service, the Garda Siochana, and the Southern Health Board were also alerted.
Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald was informed of the incident just before 10 am by Communications Minister Jim Mitchell. He telephoned prime ministers Rajiv Ghandi, India, and Brian Mulroney Canada, and briefed the Indian Ambassador in Dublin, Kiran Doshi.
The search and rescue operation soon became a mission to recover bodies and wreckage. Some experts suggested the plane’s passengers would have lived for just 22 seconds if there was a sudden loss of pressure on an aircraft flying at 31,000 feet.
Out at sea, the recovery of bodies and wreckage started. The LÉ Aisling, captained by Lieut. Commander Jim Robinson, a native of Ferrybank in Waterford, was the first naval vessel to reach the scene.
Three RAF Nimrod aircraft, eight Sea King helicopters, three Chinook helicopters and a Hercules aircraft were deployed from bases in Wales and England.
Over the following 24 hours, three Green Giant helicopters from United States Air Force bases in Suffolk and Iceland and the LÉ Eithne and HMS Challenger joined.
The LÉ Aisling, with a crew of 45, had been on fisheries patrol duties off the west coast when the alarm was raised that a plane was down.
Robinson initially thought it might have been a Cessna. Nearly two hours later he was informed it was a Jumbo jet. The horror was clear when his vessel reached the scene.
“There were bodies everywhere. We could see as many as 20 bodies at a time. It was not the most pleasant experience,” he said.
Robinson and three of his crew were later presented with the State’s second highest military honour, the Distinguished Service Medal.
The ship’s commander was honoured for his courage, confidence, and authority while co-ordinating the complex air and sea recovery.
Petty Officer Mossie Mahon from Cobh and Leading Seaman John McGrath from Salthill in Galway were decorated for diving into the sea where sharks were gathering to recover bodies without regard for their personal safety.
Able Seaman Terence Brown from Dublin, who operated a Gemini dinghy, which put to sea 14 times in search of bodies, was honoured for his seamanship in controlling the inflatable in the hazardous ocean over a long period which gave support and inspiration to his fellow crewmen.
Brown later recalled: “The first body was of a little boy in a blue tracksuit. I can still picture his face; the image will remain with me forever.” A Panamanian registered cargo ship, the Laurentian Forest, heading to Dublin with a cargo of newsprint, was the first vessel to reach the crash site.
It reported the sighting of wreckage to Valentia Coast Radio Station and picked up bodies from the choppy sea. None were wearing life jackets. Some still had their airline slippers on. And there was a strong smell of aviation fuel.
The ship’s master, Captain Roddy MacDoughall, later praised the bravery of the Aisling crew, who swam through rough seas to retrieve bodies and flotsam. “I would not have done it,” he said.
Valentia Lifeboat in Kerry was launched after secretary Paddy Gallagher was notified of the missing aircraft and remained at sea for 20 hours.
Coxswain Sean Murphy later recalled seeing bodies everywhere. “You can’t even imagine it. You read about such things but do not really believe it could ever happen here,” he said.
Taoiseach Dr Garrett Fitzgerald flew to Cork Airport early the following morning. He met with the emergency services and visited the Regional Hospital where he was briefed by doctors and medical personnel.
Irish Examiner photographer Denis Minihane, who arrived at the hospital after the bodies were brought from the crash site, secured the defining image of the disaster after setting his camera and raising it above his head.
His dramatic award-winning photograph of bodies wrapped in shrouds at the hospital’s temporary morgue was published in newspapers and magazines worldwide, including LIFE.
The image was taken through an open window in the building after he had patiently waited for a gust of wind to lift a net curtain obscuring the view.
Six weeks after the bombing, a service was held at Cork Regional Hospital. The Irish, Canadian and Indian governments were represented. A choir of nurses sang. It was an emotional occasion.
Bishop Michael Murphy, (Catholic) and Bishop Samuel Poyntz (Church of Ireland) were joined by the representatives of eight other faiths. And there were words of thanks and remembrance for the work of the hospital staff and all the emergency services.
All but one of the bodies recovered from disaster had at that stage been identified and returned to their families. It was a remarkable achievement by the hospital.
A posy of flowers in the Indian colours lay on the solitary plain oak coffin in front of the altar. It contained the body of a girl, aged 8.
The number 57 was etched on the brass where her name should have been. Fingerprint and dental charts from Canada were awaited to establish her positive identification.
Today, there is a memorial garden and sundial at Ahakista in west Cork, on land donated by the County Council, which offers beautiful views across Dunmanus Bay, and the Atlantic beyond.
It is the nearest land point to where Air India 182 exploded. The sundial is the work of sculptor Ken Thompson and was donated by the people of Ireland, Canada and India.
Over the years it has become a cherished place of pilgrimage and healing for the families who lost loved ones in the atrocity. It is a place where grief, loss and the kindness of strangers are recalled in peace and tranquillity.
President Mary McAleese, speaking there in 2005, said the local people had opened their hearts and homes to the bereaved who came in sad pilgrimage over the years.
“Out of such humanity,” she said, “we see the power love has to transcend even the most appalling evil.”
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