The remains of a man believed to be a victim of the 1968 Tuskar Rock air tragedy off the coast of Wexford remains unidentified almost 60 years after they were found, despite being discovered in the sea near Tuskar Rock in May 1968.
Aer Lingus flight 712 crashed into the sea off Wexford on March 24, 1968, killing all 57 passengers and four crew members while on a flight between Cork and London Heathrow.
Thirteen bodies were found shortly after the crash, with another body discovered later in May; however, efforts to identify the decomposed remains have been unsuccessful, with the man’s body buried in Crosstown cemetery in Wexford.
The unidentified remains are included on a database of unidentified remains published by the Department of Justice last May, with the injuries consistent with someone involved in a plane crash as noted in a report related to the Tuskar Rock discovery.
The remains were exhumed in 2000 for DNA extraction but remain unidentified at present. A bell ringing ceremony at Shandon Steeple last month marked the anniversary of the air tragedy in memory of those who died.
The aircraft is believed accidentally shot down by a missile fired during a training esercise by England’s territorial army, although this has never been acknowledged by the Westminster government. It was denied in a 2001 report citing “top secret’ military sources which were not revealed to the public, and which claimed instead that inexpert maintenance standards at Aer Lingus were responsible for the crash.
