The second inquiry into a 1953 crash of an Aer Lingus aircraft which resulted in its captain being barred from flying for life has failed to exonerate the pilot, now deceased.
The late Capt Thomas Hanley's family said they were surprised by the finding of the Keane inquiry released yesterday, which upholds the conclusions of an earlier investigation that they claim is a slur on Capt Hanley's reputation.
His daughter, Ms Patricia Hanley, last night expressed disappointment at the finding of the inquiry by Mr Patrick Keane SC.
Mr Keane's inquiry was set up last year following campaigning by Capt Hanley's family, who insist the pilot was wrongly blamed for the forced landing of the aircraft in a field near Birmingham on January 1st, 1953.
Capt Hanley managed to land the aircraft on farmland after both engines cut out while it was descending. While the plane was destroyed, only one member of the crew and 22 passengers were seriously injured.
Mr Keane's inquiry concludes that the finding of the original inquiry in 1953 was reasonable and that no new evidence was available which might lead to a different conclusion.
However, relatives last night continued to insist that the new evidence they had submitted to Mr Keane, including two reports and eyewitness material, showed the verdict of the original flawed inquiry was wrong and unfair.
The main conclusion of the public inquiry into the incident, held in June 1953 and chaired by the late Mr Justice Thomas Teevan, was that the primary cause of the accident was loss of engine power due to fuel starvation. It said the accident could have been avoided had the crew diagnosed the cause of the trouble and changed the fuel feed to another tank.
Capt Hanley's licence for passenger-carrying aircraft was subsequently endorsed for life and he was forced to emigrate.
On his return to Ireland upon retirement in 1974, he and his family began campaigning to have the case reopened, claiming that relevant evidence had been withheld from the original inquiry and that Capt Hanley's defence of water contamination of the fuel had not been properly investigated.
His contention that a miscarriage of justice had taken place was endorsed by the Irish Airline Pilots' Association, which made submissions to the government in the mid-1970s.
In 1977 Capt Hanley's pilot's licence was restored, although he was too old to exercise it and he died in 1992, aged 85. His daughters applied to the Department of Transport in 2000 for an independent review of the case, which led to the Keane review of the 1953 inquiry.
Mr Keane's report states that it was "reasonable for that inquiry based on the evidence to conclude as a matter of probability that fuel mismanagement had been the cause of the crash on 1 January 1953".
He further finds that there was no evidence now available that was not available to the original inquiry, "which by itself or together with the evidence that was available to the inquiry might have led it to reach a different conclusion".
The Hanley family said last night they were disappointed that Mr Keane's inquiry did not acknowledge Capt Hanley's "complete innocence of this charge" and said its approach was too narrow.
In a statement released through their solicitors, the family pledged to continue their fight. They said Capt Hanley and his first officer had been used as "scapegoats" by Aer Lingus [in the 1950s] so it would not have to admit flaws in its refuelling system.