Dezy Walls Launches Campaign for Flight 712 Truth
Families bereaved by the 1968 Tuskar Rock air disaster deserve to know the truth of what happened, according to 78-year-old playwright Dezy Walls, who lost his father in the tragedy. Walls was just 19 years old when his father, Desmond Walls, died in the Aer Lingus Flight 712 disaster on March 24, 1968, as an operations manager bound for a London business meeting. The Vickers Viscount aircraft plunged into the sea off the southeast coast, killing all 61 people on board, with only 14 bodies ever recovered. Now, nearly six decades later, the Irish Independent reported that Walls is launching a nationwide campaign built around his play, Searching For Daddly-Dee, to pressure the Government for answers ahead of the upcoming 60th anniversary.
The staging campaign begins with an opening performance in Kenmare on Saturday, November 7. The major campaign will run from March 24 next — the 59th anniversary of the disaster — until March 2028, the 60th anniversary. Walls wrote the production initially as a personal catharsis to reconcile a tense final conversation with his father over university studies and socialising before slamming the car door and walking away. The script struck a deep chord with audiences and won an IMRO award as Drama of the Year. The campaign is aimed at securing answers for the bereaved families.
Technological Advances Drive Calls for a New State Review
Calls for renewed state intervention are gaining momentum as retired Cork County Archaeologist Dr Catryn Power urges officials to deploy modern technology to examine the seabed wreckage before 2028. Dr Power pointed out that Irish universities helped develop advanced magnetometers capable of detecting tiny quantities of metal on the ocean floor, alongside remotely operated submersibles that can retrieve wreckage. A 2002 report identified 46 witnesses who saw the aircraft on the day of the disaster and examined various hypotheses, including structural failure, metal fatigue, and a tail-plane breakdown. However, investigators never established a precise root cause, leaving a vacuum that historical speculation and rumors have filled over the decades.
A comprehensive 2002 report compiled by French and Australian experts definitively ruled out the possibility that the Viscount was hit by another aircraft, a missile, or a drone. Separately, Irish experts rejected the theory of a mid-air collision with a French-built military aircraft that was training with the Irish Air Corps at the time. Instead, international investigators suggested that the most likely cause was the failure of the left tail-plane due to metal fatigue, resulting in the aircraft losing control and entering an unrecoverable spin. Despite these findings, the majority of the 61 victims remain lost to the sea. Dr Power argues that modern forensic capabilities now offer an opportunity to examine wreckage for answers about what happened in 1968.
Questions Remain Unresolved Regarding Flight 712
Frequently Asked Questions About the Tuskar Rock Disaster
What was the official conclusion of the 2002 expert report?
French and Australian experts concluded that the most likely cause of the tragedy was the structural failure of the left tail-plane due to metal fatigue, which caused the aircraft to enter an unrecoverable spin. The report formally dismissed theories involving missiles, drones, or mid-air collisions with other aircraft.
How many people survived or were recovered from the crash?
All 61 passengers and crew members on board Flight 712 perished in the March 1968 disaster. Search and recovery teams located only 14 bodies in the waters around Tuskar Rock, leaving the remaining victims missing at sea.
What is the timeline for Dezy Walls’ campaign?
The campaign opens in Kenmare on November 7. The major campaign runs from March 24 for the 59th anniversary of the crash until March 2028, marking the 60th anniversary of the tragedy.