My life with Jerome McCormick: I lost my brother in one of Ireland's worst air disasters

My mother continued to tell herself that the crash was an act of God. She said that for years, until one day I piped up and told her that “God doesn’t just go around pulling planes out of the sky.”

Jerome McCormick from Cobh recalling the moment he lost hios brother in the Aer Lingus Flight 712 which fell into the sea of Tuscar Rock in 1968. Picture: Howard Crowdy

I was sitting at home having dinner with my mother when the news came on the radio that my brother’s flight had been delayed.

An announcement like that was not out of the ordinary back then. However, when we heard just a few minutes later that the plane was now missing, our world plunged into darkness. I phoned the airport in the fading hope that maybe he never got on board. Our worst fears were confirmed after learning that my brother Neil was the last person to climb up those steps. We were consumed by numbness. In all that time, I never saw my mother cry. It was only years later after meeting some of the other victims’ families that she finally shed a tear. Her coping strategies were similar to many other Irish mothers of their day.