Madam, - Jurgen Whyte, chief inspector of air accidents (March 27th), responding to my theory that the Tuskar Rock air crash was caused by a collision, points out that the Fouga Magister, which did not have ejection seats, did not come into service with the Irish Air Corps (IAC) until 1976, "a full eight years after the tragedy at Tuskar Rock".
I am well aware of this. Perhaps he could explain, however, why appendix 5.2g of the 2002 report by the international team, which is headed "Irish Air Corps Aircraft 1968", clearly shows a picture of a Fouga Magister in between the Vampire and the Dove aircraft. And please don't try to fob me off with the lame excuse that it is an error on the part of the person who produced the montage for this appendix.
The Potez Aircraft Company, based in France, manufactured this very successful two-seat jet trainer. From 1962 until August 1968, it had a factory at Baldonnel with financial support from the Irish government. In 1964 the Potez Company in France built a prototype Fouga Magister which did have ejection seats. This was lent to the French air force in 1964-65, presumably so that it could assess whether it wanted to place an order. My guess is that the extra cost and extra weight, without more thrust than the standard Fouga, left the French air force unimpressed and no orders were placed.
In 1967 Potez was taken over by the French company Sud-Aviation. My guess is that Sud Aviation, after assessing the assets of its newly acquired company, decided to try to persuade the IAC to go for the ejection-seat version, helped by the company's presence at Baldonnel. My guess is that, as with the French, the prototype was lent to the IAC for flight trials in the hope that a firm order would be placed. I surmise that it was this aircraft that was contacted by the Viscount captain while it was on a routine test flight that Sunday morning to come and check if the cockpit indications of a partially lowered undercarriage were true or false.
The pilot of the "other aircraft" misjudged his closing speed on the Viscount, probably because the Viscount was being flown slower than normal due to the possible undercarriage problem, and collided with the port elevator of the Viscount with his starboard wing tip tank just as it was transmitting his call on London Airways frequency: "Echo India Alpha Oscar Mike with you". Eight seconds later the co-pilot of the Viscount blurted out "Five thousand feet, descending, spinning rapidly"- only he wasn't at 5,000 but actually at 15,000 feet. In 1968 the altimeters in the Viscount were the same as those on the RAF Jet Provost in which I instructed. A student of mine when placed under stress, but on a clear day with no cloud, misread his altimeter by 10,000 feet, thinking he was at 1,000 feet when he was really at 11,000 feet.
The "other aircraft" immediately put on full power to get away from the stricken Viscount and this was heard by about 10 witnesses on the ground in the Bridgetown area as a sudden "roll of thunder". A few minutes later the aircraft was seen by six witnesses travelling in a NW to SE direction in the Fethard-on-Sea area and descending.
Witness No 1 gives a perfect description of what you would see if witnessing a two-man ejection from a jet aircraft. He describes the aircraft as "coming out of three small black clouds with a sudden sharp turn as if fired from those clouds". The "three little black clouds" are always produced when the three cartridges in the aircraft are fired, firstly to blow the canopy away and then the two pilots' seats. The second description endorses the simple law of physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The canopy and pilots go up and the aircraft goes down as the cartridges are fired.
How can anyone with an open mind and not involved in the massive "cover-up" that has now gone on for 39 years not reach the conclusion that another aircraft was involved and did collide with the Viscount, based on the witness evidence I have just described? If it was the prototype ejection-seat Fouga Magister that collided and was then abandoned to crash in Ballyteige Bay, does this explain the sudden demise of the Potez Aircraft Company factory at Baldonnel? The factory reached its highest employee strength of 113 in March 1968, the same month as the Tuskar Rock disaster, with very positive projections for 1969 announced only a few weeks earlier - only to go into receivership on August 9th that year. - Yours, etc,
ERIC EVERS, (RAF Sqd Lrd, retd), Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire, England.