Helicopter crew loss ‘accidental deaths’

The jury of eight returned the verdict following some three hours of deliberations.

Rescue 116 crashed off Co Mayo at 12.46am on March 14 2017 during a search-and-rescue mission with four crew on board, after it struck Blackrock Island, 12 miles off the Irish coast.

At the time of the accident the crew were offering support to an operation to airlift an injured man from a fishing trawler.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, the commander of the flight, was pulled from the sea in the hours after the crash and never regained consciousness, and the body of Captain Mark Duffy, the co-pilot, was taken from the cockpit 12 days later by Navy divers.

The bodies of winchmen Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith were never recovered, despite weeks of intensive searches of the seabed, surface and shore.

The foreman of the jury confirmed yesterday that all four deaths were accidental.

An investigation published last year into the crash identified “systemic safety issues” and made 42 safety recommendations.

The investigation found that the aircraft was manoeuvring at 200ft and nine nautical miles from the intended landing point at Blacksod, at night and in poor weather conditions, unaware that a 282ft obstacle was on the flight path.

There were “serious and important weaknesses” with the operator’s safety management systems (SMS) in relation to navigation and the reporting of safety issues, “such that certain risks that could have been mitigated were not”, the report said.

The investigation report found that concerns had been raised over the navigation system, the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS), four years before the crash.

The report into the crash said that the crew were “unaware” it was heading for Blackrock Island.

The ordnance survey imagery did not show Blackrock and instead showed open water.