The Defence Forces chief-of-staff has said there is no new evidence to justify reopening the investigation into the July, 1999, Dauphin helicopter crash in Tramore, Co Waterford, which claimed the lives of four Air Corps crew.
The Chief-of Staff, Lieut-Col Colm Mangan, has turned down a request by Mr Tony Baker, father of co-pilot Capt Mick Baker, to reopen the investigation. In a letter dated August 21st, Lieut-Col Mangan says both reports into the accident have been considered independently by a senior counsel, who has stated that the accident has been "exhaustively investigated".
Mr Baker, who has also written to the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and the Garda Síochána, on the issue, says that he will drop the case pending against the State over his son's death if the investigation is reopened or a judicial inquiry is established.
Both the Baker family and the relatives of the three other airmen involved have questioned the deletion of certain sections of a military court of inquiry report into the accident.
Mr Baker also recently obtained a memo, dated June 15th, 1999, in which the then head of the Air Corps, Brig-Gen Patrick Cranfield, had advised against initiating 24-hour search and rescue cover in the south-east on July 1st of that year.
The State admitted liability for the crash for the first time in the case taken by Ms Maria O'Flaherty, widow of the late Capt Dave O'Flaherty, which was heard in the High Court in Waterford last July.
The families of the crewmen on the flight - the late Sgt Paddy Mooney and the late Cpl Niall Byrne - have appealed to the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, to extend this admission, while stressing that they have no interest in revisiting the financial settlements made in their respective cases.
The Byrne and Mooney families also maintain that a public inquiry should be held in the light of the liability admission, and have Ms O'Flaherty's support for this call. None of the four crew has been given military honours posthumously for their efforts.
The case of the late Capt Mick Baker is the only legal action outstanding against the State relating to the crash. Mr Baker, an official with the Department of Agriculture in Co Wexford, says his main concern is establishing the truth, and he will give any compensation to charity if he proceeds.
The four air crew were returning from the first night rescue mission at the southeast base in the early hours of July 2nd, 1999, when the Dauphin helicopter collided with a sand dune in thick fog.
The official investigation by the Air Accident Investigation Unit highlighted "serious deficiencies" in the support for the four crew.
The crew had only learned on July 1st - the day the base at Waterford Airport was converted to 24-hour cover - that no after-hours air traffic control was to be provided. An agreement had not been concluded by the Department of Defence and the airport management.