Re-visit Mallow Racecourse on 18th April 1983 and relive the events of that morning with interviews with the Flight Crew, Approach Radar Controller and a New & Exclusive interview with the Avair pilot who, from another aircraft, witnessed the event unfolding.
XA-FOU was a Gulfstream 2 business jet which, on the morning of Monday, 18th April 1983, was inbound to Shannon Airport from Newark. As the aircraft approached Shannon Airport, a fog-bank quickly rolled in off the estuary and settled upon the Airport and Runways, preventing the flight from landing.
The flight crew advised ATC that they had insufficient fuel to divert to Dublin and elected to divert to Cork Airport. The crew asked how far it was to Cork, and when the Controller told them it was fifty-five miles away, the response was “…wow…”. En route to Cork, the crew announced that they had insufficient fuel to make it to Cork.
The Controllers now had to find, what they hoped would be, a suitable landing site. The location selected was Mallow Racecourse, and the Controllers now had to work together with Capt. Ruben Ocana and his flight crew to guide the aircraft to this unmarked site and, with fuel running out, make a landing on this unprepared, make-shift, last resort grass horse-racing track.
In a new addition to this edition of the episode, AvAir Pilot William Treacy recalls the event unfolding as he witnessed it from his aircraft.
