A COASTGUARD helicopter airlifted a man to safety from the wing of his light aircraft last evening after he was forced to ditch the plane in the sea off the south Co Wexford coast.
The two-seater craft landed near Tuskar Rock Lighthouse, some seven miles from Rosslare Harbour, at around 4.45pm.
The plane was travelling from Haverford West in Wales to an airfield run by the Society of Amateur Aircraft Constructors at Ardinagh in Taghmon, some 15 miles from Wexford town.
A spokesman for the RNLI said the Rosslare lifeboat was alerted to the incident at 4.47pm and was on the scene within 28 minutes.
When the lifeboat reached Tuskar Rock the crew noticed the pilot sitting on the wing of the floating aircraft, a two-seater Avid Speedwing, he added.
The pilot, who was the sole occupant of the single engine plane, was then winched form the wing of the aircraft by an Irish Coast Guard helicopter at around 5.25pm and flown to Waterford Airport.
He was named locally as John O’Shaughnessy.
The Co Clare native, who is in his 50s, was transported by ambulance from Waterford Airport to Waterford Regional Hospital, and it is understood he was suffering from shock and hypothermia.
A spokeswoman for the hospital said the man was examined and discharged a short time later.
Coast guard pilot Capt Dara Fitzpatrick said the occupants of a sporting vessel named The Orchid witnessed the plane crashing and sent out a Mayday signal.
“We picked up the [British Orchid] vessel on the infrared camera,” she said. “We could see the pilot on the [Avid] wings, which were slowly submerging.”
The signal was also picked up at the Irish Transport Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) in Dublin and the Sikorsky rescue helicopter, which is based at Waterford Airport, was tasked to the scene.
Declan Geoghan, operations manager of the coast guard, said that it appeared to have been a controlled landing. “The plane did not come spiralling out of the sky,” he said. “It was a controlled landing and it went into the sea belly down.”
The aircraft was towed to shore by the Rosslare Lifeboat last night and landed at Carne Beach at around 8.30pm. The area where the aircraft was brought to shore was cordoned off as around 100 people had gathered to see.
“The pilot was lucky and conditions were quite calm,” Rosslare RNLI Coxswain Brendan Pitt said. The Kilmore Quay lifeboat was also involved in the rescue effort.
Members of the Department of Transport’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) travelled to Carne last night to begin their examination of the aircraft and investigation into the cause of the crash. “We do not have any idea why it crashed at this point,” a department spokeswoman said last night.
The incident took place near the scene of Ireland’s worst ever aviation disaster. In 1968 Aer Lingus flight 712 crashed off Tuskar Rock with 61 passengers and crew on board.
The plane was flying from Cork to London Heathrow when it crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock at 12.15pm on Sunday, March 24th, 1968.
All those on board were killed and only 14 bodies were recovered. The passengers and crew were from Switzerland, Britain, Belgium and Ireland with 36 of the 61 from the Cork area.