Air disasters are not a common occurrence in Ireland, with the Aer Lingus crash at Tuskar Rock in 1968 remembered as the worst crash involving an Irish aircraft. Some 61 passengers and crew died in that incident.
Most of the other plane crashes in Ireland involved aircraft taking off from Shannon airport or preparing to land there.
June 23rd, 1985
An Air India Boeing 747 aircraft, en route from Canada to New Delhi, blew up over the Atlantic Ocean at 8.13am. Some 329 people died in the incident, including 22 crew.
Many were Indian families going home to see their relatives. The explosion was a result of a bomb planted by Sikh extremists. Some 131 bodies were recovered about 100 miles off the Cork coast.
March 24th, 1968
Aer Lingus Flight 712 from Cork to London Heathrow crashed into the sea near Tuskar Rock at 12.15pm. All 57 passengers and four crew died. The passengers and crew were from Switzerland, Britain, Belgium and Ireland, with 36 of the 61 from the Cork area. Only
14 bodies were found.
In 2002, a government- commissioned study concluded that the cause of the collision may have been as a result of structural failure of the aircraft, corrosion, metal fatigue or a bird strike.
The report praised the efforts of the Aer Lingus crew in keeping the stricken aircraft flying for 30 minutes after the initial triggering factor.
September 10th, 1961
A President Airlines charter flight from Düsseldorf to Chicago crashed shortly after taking off from Shannon. Some 83 people died, including six crew.
February 26th, 1960
Thirty-four people died when an Alitalia aircraft struck the ground and crashed into Clonloghan cemetery early in the morning, shortly after taking off from Shannon.
August 14th, 1958
Ninety-nine passengers and crew died when a KLM Super Constellation crashed off the west coast in the early hours of August 14th. Wreckage was located 90 miles off the Galway coast hours after its last radio broadcast to Shannon air traffic control. The flight had stopped to refuel at Shannon and take on six passengers. It took off again at 4am, and its last radio broadcast was 35 minutes later.
September 5th, 1954
Twenty-eight people died when a KLM aircraft crashed as it left Shannon after a scheduled refuelling stop at 2.30am. The aircraft, travelling from Amsterdam to New York, crashed into the Shannon estuary shortly after takeoff. An inquest found that 27 of the deceased had died from petrol vapours, while the other victim had suffered cardiac failure.
April 15th, 1948
A Pan American flight from Karachi to New York crashed and burned shortly before landing at Shannon at 2.34am. Some 30 people died in the crash which had just one survivor - Mark Worst, an employee of the Lockheed Aircraft Company. The aircraft was a Lockheed Constellation.
Cork airport indidents
JUST ONE report compiled by the Air Accident Investigation Unit in more than three years involved Cork Airport.
That incident happened on June 26th last year. A private aircraft came from Britain and was preparing to touch down at the airport when it dropped suddenly. It bounced back up into the air and then pitched nose down.
The aircraft suffered significant damage but the pilot was uninjured.
The investigators found that the landing was the pilot's first landing on a hard paved runway as he had previously landed in airfields.
In another incident in March 2007, a Piper aircraft left the runway but there were no injuries.
An instructor was flying with a student pilot when the incident happened.
After touchdown, the instructor realised that the braking performance was poor.
The student pilot applied hard braking, which caused both main wheels to lock up and skid.
The aircraft departed the paved area at the end of the runway and proceeded a further 30metres before coming to rest in the grass area beyond.
