BONNIE GANGELHOFFreflects on the 41st anniversary of the Tuskar Rock crash of Aer Lingus flight 712 that killed her parents
THEIR FACES fade. Their voices dim to a whisper. But sometimes I see my mom and dad, their smiles flash as they wave to me one last time from the window of their doomed plane.
Sometimes, I think about my mom and how she didn’t know how to swim and she didn’t like to fly. And I think what a sad, melancholy irony that she died when a plane she was on crashed into the Irish Sea.
My parents, Mary and Joseph Gangelhoff, were among the passengers and crew killed when the Aer Lingus Viscount St PhelimFlight 712 went down near Tuskar Rock, seven miles off the coast of Wexford on March 24th, 1968 – 41 years ago tomorrow.
They were the only Americans on board that day. My dad was on business in Dublin, and my mom had accompanied him.
Of course, when stories about the crash surface this time of year, they usually say 61 people were on board when the plane started descending rapidly about 30 minutes after take-off. Only 14 bodies were found, they recount. The articles never state the obvious, that 47 bodies were not found, including my parents, who are buried somewhere in the waters surrounding Tuskar Rock.
For some of us, this tragedy is like being hit with a double whammy: no definitive answers about why the plane went down and no bodies to bury. You don’t get over it; you just get used to it. You get used to conundrums such as having two official reports on the crash – one published in 1970 which concluded that it was possible that the plane could have been hit by another airborne object and another one published in 2002 which declared the plane absolutely was not hit by another airborne object.
Reasons about what caused the so-called “greatest mystery in Irish aviation history”, rage on. Over the years, something else often haunts me more than what caused the crash. There are times when thinking about leaving the remains of my mother and father scattered on an unknown seabed far from home is far more unsettling and heartbreaking. My parents would have wanted and deserved a proper Catholic burial. There have been times when I blame myself for not doing more to rescue their remains.
There have been times, early on after the crash, when a little voice would echo in my head, “you can’t just leave them down there in the sea”. But by now, of course, there is hardly more than one of their molars left on the seabed floor in St George’s Channel.
But amid such bleak thoughts, there is the story about a single act of kindness by one Irish woman that has provided me with great comfort over the years.
This part of my story begins in the mid-1970s, when I found out quite by chance that Aer Lingus had erected a memorial to the victims of the crash at Crosstown Cemetery in Co Wexford. I knew I would eventually visit the cemetery. People heal in different ways – some go to therapy groups while others may place flowers at the spot where their loved ones could have landed when they jumped from a window of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11th. For me, I guess visiting the memorial was part of the never-ending healing process. And the cemetery was a place on land that was relatively close to where the plane went down.
On August 19th, 1981, on what would have been my mother’s 58th birthday, I walked through the gates of Crosstown Cemetery for the first time. When I look back to that day, I see myself fighting a damp and gusty wind. I am lost wandering through rows and rows of headstones. For some reason, I think the memorial will be easy to find and I have left the photograph of the memorial Aer Lingus sent me at my home in Boston.
Amid numerous headstones for generations of Irish families, I’m trying to find the only marker that exists for my parents anywhere in the world. The cemetery is so empty and it’s as creepy as a scene from a horror film on Halloween. Finally, I see a man tending the graves and I chase after him like he is my long-lost guardian angel. The grave digger directs me to the memorial.
Unlike the round and rectangular gravestones all around me, the memorial rises as a sharp triangle, asymmetrical, incomplete, and almost violent as it cuts a jagged diagonal across the grey sky. In a shallow trough of white pebbles in front of the stone rests a single black vase with two faded plastic flowers. Such a pitiful token, I think. Does anyone ever visit this forlorn place? I set my yellow flowers in the vase with some water I had brought with me in a plastic bottle. I kneel and say a prayer for my parents. I know it will be a long time before I return, if ever, so I pick up a few of the white pebbles and tuck them into my purse. I don’t know exactly why.
In 1994, I return to Ireland for the second time. It was not part of my plans. I had been visiting London and was set to return home to Texas in a few days. But it is mid-March and I hear this voice beckoning: “It’s the anniversary and Ireland is so very close.” After two restless nights, I call KLM, cancel my reservation home, and fly to Ireland.
On March 24th, 1994, on what would have been the 26th anniversary of the crash, I am walking through the gates of Crosstown Cemetery in Wexford once again. I am carrying a bunch of flowers and am once again thinking what a desolate place this memorial is. Does anyone ever visit? Why build a memorial if no one comes? I am lost in thought, when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure emerging from behind a sea of headstones. As the figure gets closer, I notice she carries a bundle of flowers in her arms. She keeps approaching the jagged memorial stone where I am standing until she finally stops right beside me.
I am speechless. My voice falters but I finally manage to open my mouth and words fall out: “Did you know someone on the plane?”
The woman replies: “My sister.” Hilda Kenny, from Co Wexford, tells me her sister, Ann Kelly, was a flight attendant that day. Although Ann was among the 14 found and is buried near by, Hilda tells me that she always brings extra flowers for the memorial to the victims of the crash when she visits her sister’s grave. Hilda has been coming for years and has never seen anyone here until now.
I am so touched by her act of thoughtfulness that a tear forms in my eye, just when I am sure there are no more to shed. We are both members of a club we never asked to join. Hilda asks me to her home, taking me in like a sister. For a few days, we sit and talk and talk about the impact this tragedy has had on our lives.
As the years pass and questions linger about what happened to Aer Lingus Flight 712, I find comfort in this act of kindness by one woman in the far-off country where my parents died.
Every March 24th, as I light a candle for my mom and dad at a church here in America, I know Hilda Kenny will be at Crosstown Cemetery, bearing a bouquet of flowers, laying them on the memorial, paying respects to my parents and a plane-full of other people she never knew.
Bonnie Gangelhoff is a magazine editor and writer who lives in Boulder, Colorado