UK papers reveal RAF plane strayed to skies over Mullingar

An RAF plane that went astray wound up flying over Mullingar, a Belfast Newsletter article has claimed.

The information arises from declassified UK government files, which reveal that the plane veered off course, due to what appeared to be what the paper describes as “a genuine navigational error by an inexperienced pilot”.

The incident happened exactly 28 years ago today – on December 30 1987, and the plane involved was a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, a type of plane in use by the RAF’s Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Tom King, was informed of the incident, and advised that this country’s representatives might raise the issue at an Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference due to take place in February 1988, on the basis that there was “widespread scepticism” that the incursion was “simply an accident”.

The briefing stressed however that the incident was due to “inadvertence” by the pilot, and stated that all concerned had been severely reprimanded.