'We prepared for survivors': A Navy officer's memory of Air India Flight 182, 40 years on

Irish Examiner

21-06-2025

Hundreds of people including relatives of those who died in the Air India disaster will attend the 40th anniversary commemoration for the 329 passengers and crew who were killed when a bomb exploded on the transatlantic flight off the coast of West Cork.
The main commemoration will be held on Monday, June 23, in the village of Ahakista, the nearest point on land to where Air India flight 182 exploded, scattering bodies and debris into the Atlantic about 190km off the Irish coast.
This commemoration will get under way at 8am and is expected to be attended by a number of senior Canadian and Indian diplomats, along with Irish politicians and members of the emergency services, some of whom who are now retired but were involved in the original search and recovery operation. The navy will be represented by its current commanding officer Commodore Michael Malone.
The plane's wreckage being brought ashore.
A memorial built in the West Cork coastal village was unveiled exactly one year after the 1985 disaster. Its centrepiece is a sundial on a rounded stone base. Created by Cork sculptor Ken Thompson, it is designed to capture the sun's rays at 8.13am, which is the exact time the Boeing 747-237B disappeared from radar.
The flight was heading from Montreal for a stopover in London and then to Delhi. It was blown up in Irish airspace while at an altitude of 9,400m.
Of those killed, the majority were of Indian descent. There were 280 Canadian citizens, 27 British and 22 Indian passport holders onboard, plus other nationalities. There were more than 80 children onboard.
Initially, it was not known what the cause was, but it was quickly determined a bomb had been placed onboard.
It was planted by Sikh separatists and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the 9/11 Osama Bin Laden-led attacks on the US in 2001 killed more than 3,000.
The jet's bombing remains the largest mass murder in modern Canadian history and the worst loss of life ever suffered by Air India.
On June 13 of this year an Air India passenger plane bound for London crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad, resulting in the tragic loss of 241 lives on board and at least 29 fatalities on the ground.
The Indian Embassy in Ireland lauded the local community for it response to the 1985 disaster. It said: "The spirit with which the people of Ahakista and the nearby areas rose to the occasion in solidarity with the families of the victims is a saga but a story largely unknown.
Apart from emergency assistance in identifying the bodies and locating and collecting the debris, they opened their hearts and homes to complete strangers and generously put them up in their hour of grief. They continue to do so to this day.
The Naval Service mounted a major recovery operation, which was aided by the RAF, which sent in Sea King helicopters. In total, 131 bodies were recovered in what was the biggest off-shore search and recovery operation ever mounted by the Irish State.
'We prepared for survivors'
Captain James Robinson, Officer Commander Naval Operations, aboard the le Eithne in 2000.
It was coordinated by Lieutenant Commander James Robinson, who captained LÉ Aisling, which was one of five ships at the scene.
At the time, Robinson's ship had been searching for Spanish trawlers fishing illegally off the Kerry coast when it picked up an alert at 8.52am from Valentia Radio, which said an aircraft had disappeared from radar screens and gave him the likely position of where the plane came down.
He said initially they were not told what kind of aircraft was missing, but soon got the awful news it was an Air India Boeing 747 with 329 people on board.
'We prepared for an awful lot of survivors. Spare blankets and sheets were taken out of stores. The sick bay was prepared. Soup was put on the stove. We were going to spare no effort to save as many of those poor people as possible,' he said.
LÉ Aisling arrived at the crash scene shortly after 11am. One large merchant ship, the Laurentian Forest, was in the vicinity while overhead a Royal Air Force Nimrod aircraft was circling the area dropping smoke floats to mark concentrations of wreckage.
The senior navy officer decided on two objectives. The most important was to recover as many bodies as possible, and as quickly as possible.
Robinson was lucky to have an experienced diving team onboard who went out on Gemini RIB (rigid inflatable boats) to gather as many bodies as they could.
Though exhausted, the diving team refused to be replaced when Robinson ordered it. They launched 14 times during the day to recover the bodies.
The bodies were wrapped in sheets and stowed below decks. The engineers' office and the shipwright's workshop were designated as make-shift morgues.
The first body recovered from the crash site arriving at Cork Airport.
At the height of the search, Mr Robinson was controlling the movements of 19 ships, a British Nimrod and American Hercules which supplied over-head surveillance technology, and eight military helicopters supplied by the British and US.
He also enlisted the help of Spanish trawlers in the area, after finding one crewman on a merchant ship in the area who could speak English and Spanish and he was detailed to relay messages to the trawlers.
The merchant vessels also acted as landing pads for helicopters bringing back bodies and other rescue helicopters transported them to the mortuary at the then Cork Regional Hospital, now CUH.
When night fell, Robinson released the ships and trawlers from the operation.
'Aisling was left alone in the midst of all that desolation. For the first time since it kicked off, I had time to reflect. I hoped that one day I would look the people who did this in the eye.
"I then reflected on what had been achieved by the people under my command and I felt immensely proud but humbled. Most of the people on Aisling were under 25 and many just teenagers. They carried out everything I had asked of them without question,' he said.
Robinson has not been to the commemoration for some years but will be attending on Monday where he will lay a wreath alongside several of his former shipmates.
'The families of those who died are getting older so it could be the last big commemoration,' he said.
Local school children will form a choir at the ceremony, which is being organised by Cork County Council.
A number of locals helped to recover vital pieces of wreckage as well, especially those living by the shore. One was James O'Mahony. At the time he lived close to Trarurim Strand, which is about 10km west of Ahakista.
'People living by the shore would find bits and pieces [of the plane's wreckage] and hand it over the council who would pass it on to the relevant authorities,' Mr O'Mahony said.
Mr O'Mahony has since moved to just 1km from the Ahakista memorial and will attend the commemoration this year because it's the 40th anniversary.
He has been to a number of them before and met some of the relatives of those who lost their lives, mainly from India.
Most of the victims were Hindus and lived in Ontario.
The second ceremony of the day will take place at St Michael's Cemetery in the Cork suburb of Blackrock, where two of the victims are buried.
Anna Maria Alexander and her daughter, Rena, were both laid to rest in a single grave there. They are the only victims buried in this country as all the other bodies recovered after the plane went down were taken to be buried in their respective home countries by relatives.
Finbarr Archer, who has driven lord mayors of Cork for many years, has looked after their graves for the past 40 years.
Well-known Cork figure, Finbarr Archer. In June 1985, Finbar was working as an undertaker when he was stationed at the makeshift morgue in Cork following the Air India Flight 182 disaster. In the aftermath, he personally arranged the burial of two unclaimed victims and has continued to tend their graves at St. Michael's Cemetery in Blackrock ever since. Picture Chani Anderson
He worked as an undertaker's assistant at the time of the disaster, documenting the names of the dead and helping out at a makeshift mortuary.
Mr Archer said that Ann Marie Alexander's husband and a son were also on the flight, but their bodies were never recovered.
'The mother and daughter's bodies were never claimed. We believe that's probably because they didn't have any relatives left,' he said.
So, he took it upon himself to tend to their graves ever since and is organising the commemoration at St Michael's Cemetery.
'We will be having local school children playing music on the day and there will be representatives from the fire service and gardaí in attendance. We will also have some of the guards and firemen who were involved in the aftermath of the recovery operations. We'll also have a colour party of UN veterans who'll parade with the Irish Tricolour and Indian and Canadian national flags,' Finbarr said.
The ceremony is open to the public and will get under way at about midday.
Meanwhile, the navy has revealed as a mark of respect to those lost it has commissioned a commemorative plaque which will be unveiled at Haulbowline naval base during a special ceremony later this summer.
Among those invited to the unveiling will be the crewmembers who served proudly on board LE Aisling at the time of the tragedy and as a recognition the navy intends to present them with a commemorative military coin.
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