Air India 182 - 30th Anniversary

PukkaStukka

Spotted this on RTE news, I didn't realise today was the 30th Anniversary of this horrible tragedy.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0623/709867-air-india-flight-182/

RIP +

BuffyBot

Amazing to think it was so long ago.

I remember being allowed to stay up and watch the news that night :O

yerwanthere123

Sad tragedy. If anyone here is travelling to west Cork sometime you should pop down to Ahakista and have a look at the memorial garden. Very beautiful, well-maintained tribute to those who lost their lives.

durandal01

A friend of mine who was only a youngster in the navy at the time is still bothered by images of the bodies he recovered.

durandal01

yerwanthere123 wrote: »

Sad tragedy. If anyone here is travelling to west Cork sometime you should pop down to Ahakista and have a look at the memorial garden. Very beautiful, well-maintained tribute to those who lost their lives.

The carved wooden wall display sort of thing with inlays that the Indian government gave to CUH is also nice, it used to hang near the old reception. Where it is now, post expansion, I don't know.

yerwanthere123

^ Never seen that, although there is also a plaque in Anglesea street garda station, as well as in Bantry town centre.

elastico

durandal01 wrote: »

The carved wooden wall display sort of thing with inlays that the Indian government gave to CUH is also nice, it used to hang near the old reception. Where it is now, post expansion, I don't know.

I watched the documentary on youtube last night. In reality there were 268 Canadian citizens on the plane.

According to one of the survivors families when they arrived in Cork the Indian embassy were there to meet them but could do nothing as most of them were Canadian citizens and nobody from the Canada embassy was there.

Its seems the Canadian government kept it at arms length at that time as most of the passengers were of Indian decent.

skallywag

I recall it well, my main recollection being of the RAF yellow Seakings which were in and out of the airport, it was rare enough to see them there. I don't think I really processed the scale of the accident itself at the time at all, it was just one of those things you see on the news which has happened close to where I live.

PukkaStukka

Apparently a second Air India flight was also targeted that day, but the bomb exploded on the ground and claiming the lives of two baggage handlers and injuring a few more.

I was only in my mid teens at that time but I remember 1985 as being a particularly black year for air accidents. The JAL jumbo with the explosive decompression blowing the tail off, the fire on the ground in Manchester, and the Delta Tristar coming down in a storm whilst landing. All horrible tragic stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_in_aviation

Caquas

A man who was acquitted of this horrendous act of terrorism has been murdered in Canada. The attack, and a second bomb which was intended for an Air India flight to Thailand, are widely believed to have been the work of Sikh extremists but the full truth may never be known.

How strange that much the worst act of terrorism this country ever had to deal with had nothing to do with Northern Ireland. 37 years later, key issue remains unanswered- who had the technical expertise and organisation to construct and plant these sophisticated bombs?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40919153.html

Henry Ford III

I knew the Air Traffic Controller who was looking at that flight as it vanished from his screen.

Caquas

There was an interesting Irish angle to the aftermath which was noted in the official Canadian Commission of Inquiry into the bombing

Canada took the singular position at the Coroner’s Inquest in Ireland that there was no evidence of a bomb aboard Flight 182 and, based on this argument, the Coroner instructed the jury that they should make no recommendations about the cause of the crash.

Canada also succeeded in keeping any conclusions about its responsibility for the crash out of the original Indian report (the Kirpal Report) but the subsequent Canadian Report was absolutely scathing about the lack of security around the flight despite specific warnings from Indian security.

As reflected in earlier posts on this thread, most people in Ireland recall this bombing as a "tragedy" or even "accident", not as the most terrible and calculated mass murder of 329 passengers and crew. The total would have doubled if their second bomb had not exploded prematurely in Tokoyo airport (killing "only" two baggage handlers). And it was pure chance that the bomb didn't explode over a populated area, killing people on the ground (as in Lockerie). By way of comparision, the IRA's most notorious attack on civilians on "Bloody Friday" 50 years ago, resulted in 9 killed and 130 injured (obviously, this does not mitigate the IRA's appalling crimes).

As the Canadian report makes clear, this massacre could easily have been prevented by normal security procedures in Canada. Its perpetrators have escaped justice except for one man convicted of manslaughter. Who knows if the murder of Ripudaman Singh Malik was in revenge for this bombing?

https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/bcp-pco/CP32-89-4-2010-eng.pdf

2011abc

What a monstrous and pathetic attempt to get involved in a whitewash .Ireland may punch above its weight traditionally in many aspects of life but we embarass ourselves too and this millenium we seem to be doing far more of the latter .