Four people were in hospital last night after a light aircraft crashed on to a golf course in west Dublin. The three men aboard the aircraft and an ambulance worker with Dublin Fire Brigade were injured as a result of the crash close to Weston Aerodrome in Leixlip, Co Kildare.
The injured were taken to James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, where two, who were in the aircraft, were "critical but stable". Both were later transferred to the burns unit of St James's Hospital. The third man on the aircraft underwent surgery in the James Connolly Memorial Hospital.
An ambulance worker with Dublin Fire Brigade was also admitted to the hospital with serious burns on one of his legs, received when the aircraft's fuel went on fire.
The four-seater Tampico TB9 single-engined aircraft crashed into the 15th fairway of Lucan Golf Club, just a few hundred metres from Weston airstrip. The aerodrome is located across the Leixlip Road from the golf course.
A garda at the scene said he believed the aircraft clipped trees at the perimeter of the course, and its wing was ripped off when it hit the surface, causing it to flip over.
Gardai from nearby Lucan station were on the scene within minutes of the accident, which occurred about 2 p.m. They were followed by units of Dublin Fire Brigade and members of the Air Accident Investigation Unit of the Department of Public Enterprise.
Two of the men on the aircraft had to be cut from the wreckage. Preliminary investigations were carried out at the scene.
A spokesman for Weston Aerodrome said he believed the men in the front were Allied Irish Banks employees and both held private pilot licences. He understood that the back-seat passenger was a son of one of the men.
Mr Richard Whelan, a regular at Lucan Golf Club, said light air craft using the Weston airstrip usually circled the course without flying over it on their approach to the aerodrome. "On a normal Sunday you'd have up to 12 people on the 15th hole. Fortunately, there was no one today because of the rain," he said.
