Investigators focus on engine failure as likely cause of fatal plane crash

Engine failure is being investigated as the primary cause of a light aircraft crash which killed a flight instructor and a trainee pilot.

Niall Doherty and advanced learner Damien Deegan, both 31, died when the Cessna 150H came down in scrubland a short distance from Birr airfield, Co Offaly.

The friends had been flying circuits on Sunday afternoon, with the grass landing strip always in sight, when they crashed.