Aircraft engineer seeks new inquiry into colleague's death
By Ray Managh
An aircraft maintenance engineer is to seek High Court orders directing new inquiries into the death of a colleague who was killed in a fall from a de-icing rig at Dublin Airport in March 2008.
Kevin Carroll, of Keatingstown, Co Wicklow, told Mr Justice Gerard Hogan that he wanted the court to direct the Air Accident Investigation Unit and the Irish Aviation Authority to carry out the inquiries.
Mr Carroll said his colleague, 58-year-old David Ralph, of Brackenstown, Swords, Co Dublin, had plummeted seven metres to his death when the basket of a de-icing rig broke free and crashed onto the apron of the airport.
He claimed the Investigation Unit and the Aviation Authority were obliged by law to fulfil statutory duties by inquiring into the endangerment of aircraft operations on the basis there had been a “serious incident.”
Mr Carroll said he wished to issue proceedings involving the Investigation Unit, the Irish Aviation Authority and the Garda Siochana as well as the Minister for Transport, the Minister for Enterprise and Trade, the Health and Safety Authority and the Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell.
He agreed with Judge Hogan that he was taking the proceedings only out of concern for others and had no direct association with what had happened at the airport or since.
Mr Carroll, who was not legally represented and appeared in the absence of all of the other parties, was granted leave to bring a new application on September 18 on the basis the other parties would be put on notice given an opportunity of putting their side of the story to the court.
He told the court that more than four years had passed before any information had been made public at the Dublin City Coroners Court in May last.
He said the Health and Safety Authority had apparently completed their investigation yet from his attendance at the inquest on July 26 last a number of substantial issues appeared to be unresolved.
The inquest had been adjourned until October 18 and failing completion would be put back to some time in 2013.
Mr Carroll said the Health and Safety Authority had forwarded a file to the DPP who had taken a decision not to prosecute anyone regarding the incident.
Copyright Ray Managh.
