Ireland Plane Crash Victims are Bristol Couple and Two Teenagers

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A husband and wife and their teenage son were among four people killed when a light aircraft which had taken off in Gloucestershire crashed on a mountainside in Ireland.

The bodies of Sharif and Margaret Booz and their 14-year-old son Eamon, from Almondsbury, Bristol, and a friend of the teenager, were yesterday recovered from the Piper PA-28, which had been bound for Kilrush airfield in Co Kildare.

It was found near Corriebrock Mountain, Co Wicklow, at around 10am by mountain rescue personnel acting on information from a hill walker, after a major search operation. The nose and front part were embedded in soft peat and rescuers had to use cutting equipment to get in.

The single-engine plane left Gloucestershire airport on Saturday morning and was last sighted on radar at 12.30pm over the Wicklow mountains, the Irish Aviation Authority said.

The operator of Kilrush airfield, Ian Valentine, said Booz, a 43-year-old property developer, had been using the strip for the past six or seven years to visit relatives in the nearby town of Newbridge.

Four bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a light aircraft that crashed on a mountainside in the Irish Republic, gardai have confirmed.

The plane is embedded in the ground and rescuers had to use cutting equipment to gain access.

The Piper PA-28 single engine plane took off from Gloucester on Saturday morning but failed to land at Kilrush in County Kildare at noon.

Airport officials said four people were on board the aircraft.

Gardai, the Irish Coastguard and Irish Aviation Authority, said the wreckage had been found near Corriebrock mountain.

Family members

The plane left Gloucestershire Airport at about 1000 BST on Saturday.

But the last radar sighting was at 1230 BST over the Wicklow mountains, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said.

Dublin air traffic control had monitored the flight before passing it over to Kilrush air traffic control a little over ten minutes before the last sighting.

But it was not until 1800 BST that a relative of the pilot raised concerns about the plane's whereabouts.

It is understood three of those on board were family members, while the fourth was a friend.

Gardai, the Coastguard, defence forces, and mountain rescue personnel from Dublin, Wicklow, Tipperary and Northern Ireland began a major search of the rugged terrain at about 0630 GMT on Sunday.

It is understood up to 40 mountain rescue personnel were involved in the search, along with about 15 gardai from the north Wicklow town of Bray.