Sunday, March 24^th 1968 was a clear sunny Spring day in Cork, Ireland and throughout the UK.

The routine 11:30hrs BST Cork-London run was assigned Flight EI-712 with a Vickers Viscount type 803 turboprop aircraft. Registration sequence EI-AOM and named the 'St.Phelim', the 11 year old former KLM aircraft was owned by Aer Lingus Teoranta and operated by Aer Lingus-Irish International Airlines. Flight crew slotted were Commander Bernard O'Beirne (35), Co-Pilot; First officer Paul K. Heffernan (22) with Hostesses Anne Kelly and Mary Coughlan.  Boarding began at 10:45hrs and by 11:20, the 57 mainly Irish and British passengers were seated, along with 2 Americans and a number of Swiss and Belgian nationals.

Pre-Flight route briefing for the Crew included estimated winds and temperatures, cloud levels, liklihood of turbulence (nil), icing possibly light at ceiling height of 17,000 feet, nil thunderstorms forecast and equally important, no other aircraft had reported any signficant weather on the route. Navigation aids included VOR at Cork and Strumble and Marine NDB at Tuskar. Dublin VOR was notified as being out of service for the flight and the aircraft would not be within Dublin radar cover. The Viscount did not carry flight recording equipment.

Cork Air Traffic Control gave clearance for take off at 11:25hrs as the Viscount taxiied to Runway1.

EI-AOM departed from Cork Airport at 11.32 hrs en route for London with a normal take off. The flight was cleared by Air Traffic Control to proceed via Airways Blue 10, Green 1 at flight level 170 (17,000 feet).

At 11.38hrs, the ‘St.Phelim’ had passed through 7,000 feet, clearance on course to Tuskar Rock was given. Meanwhile, the on board ‘No Smoking’ and ‘Fasten Seat Belts’ signs remained lit.

At 11.40, after the flight had reported it was by Youghal at 7,500 feet climbing to 17,000 feet, Air Traffic Control in Cork suggested that if desired, the flight could route direct to Strumble Head in Wales. No direct acceptance of this suggestion was received from Flight 712. Air Traffic Control reported later that the transmissions from the aircraft to Shannon were described as very poor. Shannon Air Traffic Control now instructed the Viscount to divert from it’s original route to a new heading over the Wales coast.

At 11.57.07hrs, the flight reported "by Bannow (a reporting point on the route at 51^° 68' N.-06^°l2'W.) level 170 (17,000 feet) estimating Strumble at 03''. The flight was instructed to change to the London Airways frequency of 131.2.

Commander O’Beirne acknowledged the transmission with the reply "131.2" at 11:57:29 hrs. The 1970 Report commented that ‘This exchange of messages was quite in line with normal practice, though not in accordance with formal procedure, but this is not thought to be of any particular significance.’

Flight 712 was now south of Hook Head, Co. Wexford, cruising at 17,000 ft along the designated air corridor between Cork and Tuskar Rock and now passed over to London Air Traffic Control.

Half a minute later at 11.58.02 hrs, the London controller who was working a BOAC flight, was interrupted with a call (garbled and simultaneous with another call from a different aircraft ) "Echo India Alpha Oscar Mike with you".

This was an unusual call from a scheduled flight, the normal callsign being Aer Lingus 712. Speculation is that the pilot, preoccupied with other events unfolding around him, may have forgotten the flight number, which changes each time he flies, and therefore used the aircraft registration instead as it is clearly printed on the control panel.

The 1970 accident report commented that ‘This message was not in the form generally used by Aer Lingus flight crews, in which the call sign used is the flight number. Furthermore, the message did not begin with the usual preamble, in that it did not contain the call sign of any ground communication station.'

While the message was not in the recognised form of a distress or urgency message, it seems probable that the message was intended to convey an element of urgency or distress, and that the aircraft was in difficulties at the time of transmission.’

Eight seconds later, at 11:58:10hrs, a call was intercepted from Flight 712’s Commander O’Beirne which was interpreted as "Five thousand feet descending spinning rapidly". This call was also heard by Aer Lingus Flight 362 en route from Dublin to Bristol and BOAC flight 506, each of which immediately reported the call to London ATC. (The word "Five" was later, after repeated acoustic analysis, interpreted as more likely to be the word "twelve".) This was quickly followed by another message ‘1,000 feet descending, spinning rapidly.'

These were the last words from flight EI-712 as it crashed into the sea some nine miles south of Hook Head in Wexford. At this time, ten witnesses near Broadway Village in Co. Wexford ‘heard loud noise like very sharp roll of thunder…from the Tuskar Rock direction.’

At 12:10hrs, London ATC advised Shannon ATC that they had no radio contact with EI-AOM.

Two eye witnesses, one a sailor on a coastal vessel, who thought he had seen an aircraft crash into the sea but did not report it at the time, and another witness on shore, Martin O'Donoghue, who saw a splash in the sea near the Tuskar Rock, gave the time as between 12:10hrs and 12:15hrs. The position lines of these two witnesses approximately cross the location where the main wreckage was eventually found.

At 12.13hrs London advised Shannon that they had requested Aer Lingus Flight EI 362 on a routine Dublin to Bristol flight, to search west of Strumble. This flight descended down to 500 feet in good visibility, but saw nothing.

Between 12:13hrs and 12:25hrs, on-going attempts efforts were made by Cork and London Air Traffic Control to make radio contact with the flight, with no response from Flight 712.

At 12:25hrs a full alert was declared. As Flight 712 had switched from Shannon to London Air Traffic Control when she was declared missing, responsibility for location and recovery fell to the Royal Navy with ultimate responsibility lying with the British Ministry of Defence. Years later it was revealed that there had been five Royal Navy vessels in the general area at the time, some which had been fitted with test missile systems.

At 12:36hrs a report from the U.K. was received by the Irish Naval Base at Haulbowline, Cork Harbour that wreckage had been sighted in position 51^° 57’ N 06^° 10' W. and that Rosslare Lifeboat was proceeding to the location.

However two surface vessels within 4 nautical miles of this position reportedly saw nothing.

At 13:52hrs, the Irish Air Corps reported that they had dispatched a Dove aircraft and a helicopter to search at the co-ordinates given. By 14:10hrs there were ten aircraft from the U.K. in the search area.

At 16:30hrs the reported sighting of wreckage was cancelled with nothing found – no survivors, wreckage, debris, personal effects or bodies.

The search was to continued the next day at 07:15hrs.