An Irishman has been killed in a plane crash in Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. The victim is believed to be aged 34 and from Co Kildare.
The accident happened yesterday at 10.50am local time when a light aircraft carrying a group of skydivers plunged into a dam west of Brisbane.
The Cessna 260 plane was carrying six passengers - four skydiving students, the pilot and an instructor. It failed to gain height shortly after take-off and then lost height rapidly, crashing into a dam near the small "bush-airstrip" adjoining the Willowbank Aerodrome.
A spokesman for Queensland Police confirmed that the four students and the pilot (a 22-year-old man) were killed. The students were a 34-year-old man, a 49-year-old woman and a 40-year-old woman whose bodies were all recovered from the submerged plane. The body of a 41-year-old man was found on the bank of the dam.
The instructor, a 27-year-old woman, and the owner of the Brisbane Skydiving Centre, Brian Scoffell (57), survived the crash.
The woman, who walked from the plane with minor injuries, was taken by car to nearby Ipswich Hospital. Mr Scoffell was airlifted to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, where he remained in intensive care last night with suspected spinal injuries.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said yesterday a male Irish citizen had been confirmed dead after the accident.
"We are offering every consular assistance to the family," she added. She would not say which of the two dead men was Irish nor which part of the State he came from, though it is understood the 34-year-old man was from Co Kildare.
The Queensland Police spokesman told The Irish Times yesterday formal identification of the victims would be ongoing through the night.
"The police are aware there's considerable international interest in this, so I suspect the identification process should be completed relatively quickly."
He said the plane would be retrieved from the dam today and that a federal aviation safety officer would arrive from Canberra to inspect the site along with officials from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
Australian Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said it could take weeks to determine the cause of the crash.
"I have told the ATSB investigators that if we get any preliminary indications of mechanical problems with the aircraft to let us know, to ensure this does not happen to another Cessna 206," he said
