Fears aircraft crashed into mountain

RESCUE services were last night investigating a report that a light aircraft had crashed into mountains in Co Kerry.

Gardaí received a call at 6pm from a witness who said they had seen an aircraft going into the Stradbally mountains in the west of the county.

Despite a Shannon Coastguard helicopter search lasting 90 minutes over a wide area around Lispole, no trace of an aircraft was found and the search is due to be resumed this morning.

The Coastguard helicopter dropped eight Kerry Mountain Rescue Team members on a ridge at Maum, at around nine o’clock last night, and they proceeded to do a ground search.

The weather was good at the time and the helicopter concentrated initially on scanning the Maum area before moving on towards the Connor Pass, after consulting eyewitnesses.

The alarm was sounded at 6pm yesterday when local people reported hearing a loud bang. Geraldine Kennedy, of Banague, said it was like gunshot and it scattered all the birds.

Local man Brian Keane said he saw a light aircraft coming from the Lispole direction and heading towards Tralee. He also said he saw smoke coming from the area.

Another man, Damien Duffy, said he saw something hit into the mountain around Maum while others said they saw a flare going off in the area.

Gardaí, the fire brigade, cliff and coastal rescue services and dozens of local people were involved in the search. Some of the agencies involved in the search are amazed that no traces of smoke, or a crash scene, were spotted by the helicopter. Airports at Kerry, Cork and Shannon have no reports of a missing aircraft.

Maum is only about three miles from the scene of a fatal helicopter crash, at Strickeen mountain, on August 28 last year, in which the pilot, David Reid, a 42-year-old father of two from Dublin, lost his life.