Sharp turn led to plane crash in which boy (7) died – report

A steeply banked turn led to the loss of control of a light aircraft which crashed and killed a seven-year-old boy and the male pilot, an investigation has found on Friday.

Niall Bowditch (47) and Kasper Kacprzak (7) died when the Cessna 208B in which they were travelling crashed into a boggy area shortly after 16 skydivers had exited the plane.

An earlier investigation into the crash in Co Offaly two years ago found no evidence of engine failure.

The pilot was returning to the Irish Parachute Club’s airfield in Clonbullogue near Edenderry, Co Offaly, when the accident happened on May 13th, 2018.

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The plane, which came from the UK, had been in constant use at the airfield during weekends from April 21st until the crash.

The impact was so great that the entire front section of the aircraft, forward of the main wheels, was below the surface of the peat bog, a length of almost 5m (16ft). The remains of the plane had to be dug out with a mechanical digger.

It took the emergency services several hours to recover the bodies of the two victims from the wreckage. They were then taken to the Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore.

In its final report into the accident – the preliminary one was published a month after the crash – the Air Accident Investigation Unit found the skydivers jumped from the aircraft, as planned, above the airfield at an altitude of approximately 13,000ft.

Crashed nose down

When the aircraft was returning to the airfield, the pilot advised by radio that he was on “left base”, the flight leg which precedes the approach leg and which is normally approximately perpendicular to the extended centre line of the runway. No further radio transmissions were received. A short while later, it was established that the aircraft had crashed nose down into a forested peat bog at Ballaghassan, Co Offaly, 4.6km to the northwest of the airfield.

The report noted the contributory causes of the fatal crash involved “the steeply banked nature of the turn being performed by the plane, the propeller torque reaction following a rapid and large increase in engine torque, the aircraft’s speed while manoeuvring and insufficient height above ground to effect a successful recovery.

“During the final 3.5 seconds of the accident sequence, the aircraft descended in a near-vertical nose-down attitude. The height of the aircraft above ground at this stage was insufficient to effect a recovery.”

The investigation concluded that the probable cause of the crash was a loss of control in a steeply banked left-hand turn, leading to a rapid loss of altitude.