Four die in light aircraft crash

IT WAS meant to be a fun bank holiday weekend away but it all went horribly wrong in bad weather on the Wicklow Mountains.

Amateur pilot Sharif Booz, from Bristol, had years of flying under his belt. He had used the Kilrush airstrip several times but this October bank holiday weekend he never got there.

Also aboard his single engine four-seater plane was his wife Margaret and their son Ayman, 14, and his teenage best friend. Reports suggest the jet nosedived into rough terrain on Church Mountain. All had to be cut from the wreckage.

Locals nearby said they heard the ominous sound of a low-flying plane at about lunchtime on Saturday but it was nearly a day later before the aircraft and its occupants were found embedded in boggy ground near Corriebracks Mountain.

Air traffic control has started an investigation. The bodies were taken to Naas General Hospital where postmortem examinations are due to be carried out today.

The plane left Gloucester in England shortly after 10am on Saturday morning bound for Kilrush airfield in Co Kildare.

It is understood Mr Booz, a property developer, has relatives in Newbridge.

A spokesperson for the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said the plane was monitored by Dublin Air Traffic control before being handed over to the Kilrush frequency at 12.17pm on Saturday.

The last radar sighting of the aircraft was at 12.30pm east of the Poulaphouca reservoir, about 30km from Kilrush.

The IAA said it alerted the emergency service after the alarm was raised at 7pm on Saturday evening by a relative of one of the passengers on board.

Operator of the Kilrush airfield Ian Valentine said the pilot had used the airstrip for years and last used it about four months ago.

Mr Valentine said he had received a text from the pilot last Tuesday saying that he was going to use the strip at some point over the weekend but that he did not specify at what time or on what day he was due to arrive.

The discovery of the aircraft was made by mountain rescue personnel from the Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue Team, who were acting on information provided by a hill-walker.

In a statement released by the group yesterday, it confirmed that it located the missing aircraft following an extensive search.

“A hasty search party from the Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue Team has this morning located the light aircraft missing since yesterday afternoon. The search area focused on the mountainous area from Corriebracks — Lobawn — Sugarloaf stretching south of the Blessington Lakes as far as the Glen of Imaal to where a sighting of a low-flying aircraft in trouble was spotted yesterday,” the statement read.

A huge search operation was launched at dawn yesterday, which included gardaí, the coastguard, Defence Forces and mountain rescue personnel from Dublin, Wicklow, Tipperary and the north.