An Error in Human Judgement

 

Graf Zeppelin, 1929

On the August bank holiday weekend in 1929, much of the world’s attention was drawn to the skies between Germany and America. The Graf Zeppelin arrived in Lakehurst, New Jersey, completing only its third transatlantic flight. That same weekend the first Challenge International de Tourism, a tourist plane contest, the first of four major aviation events in pre-war Europe, began in Paris.

And in Tallaght, Co. Dublin, curious residents looking to the sky that Sunday evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of a great aerial spectacle would get more than they had expected.

Irish Aero Club Members, Baldonnel, 1929

At 4.55pm on a beautifully clear summers evening in Tallaght, the sight of Major Samuel W. Dunckley  appeared on the horizon flying an Avro-Avian light plane belonging to the recently incorporated, and ultimately doomed “Irish Aero Club”.   Farmers and labourers were enjoying a restful Sunday evening.  Mothers and wives were preparing the tea while the children of Tallaght, at play, had their attention drawn to the heavens above by the sound of the engine, getting louder and lower as the plane approached.

At 5pm Major Dunckley crash landed the machine, embedding the front portion of the plane into a ditch on the outskirts of Tallaght.  Miraculously he disembarked from the plane, a little shaken but without injury.  With the assistance of a rapidly gathered and now growing assembly, Dunckley managed after some time, to extricate the embedded nose of the machine from the ditch.  With confidence commensurate only with his experience, Dunckley gave the plane the attention he felt it needed, to be put right. He resolved that he would have it airborne again in no time at all.  To the local farm hands, the idea of taking a recently crashed plane straight back to the skies without a thorough mechanical inspection, might not have immediately appeared to be a sterling one.  But Major S. W. Dunckley was no farm hand.  A founding member of the Irish Aero Club, he had served with distinction in the Royal Flying Corp in the Great War.

 

Irish Aero Club's First Plane, above Tallaght 1929

Looking at his potentially compromised plane, in a confined and limited space and sitting on unsuitable terrain, Dunckley was not deterred from resuming his journey.  The planes take-off was almost as miraculous as its landing.  A number of onlookers who had been advised to keep clear of the makeshift ‘runway’, had narrow escapes from being run down. On that beautiful summer evening the determined Major took flight once more, and completed his journey safely.  We know this to be the case, because at 7.30 pm on Wednesday the 24^th May 1933 Dunckley set out again from Baldonnel Aerodrome, this time piloting a de Havilland Moth plane, with a Gypsy engine.  With him was a 33 year old passenger, Edward Clayson, a London based commercial traveller who Dunckley was treating to a short leisure flight over Dublin.  Having flown west over South Dublin, the machine was seen at 8pm circling over Dalkey Harbour before tragedy struck.

The plane was observed ‘doing several loops’ until it could loop no more.  It violently, and unintentionally, entered the water at Mullings near Dalkey Island.  Hundreds of people out walking that evening around the harbour saw the plane nosedive and plunge into the sea. Wreckage was strewn across the water.  The gaze of the general and growing public was affixed on the harbour for several hours. The Kingstown life boat was dispatched and numerous small craft, out sailing in the bay that evening, assisted with the immediate search and rescue operation.   The Major was promptly found floating on the surface of the water.  He was brought to Kingstown Hospital, where on arrival life was declared extinct. He was 45 years old.

Initial reports suggested the plane may have belonged to Osmonde ‘Ossie’ Esmonde, T.D, a member of the chamber in the Free State Assembly and a founding member of the Irish Aero Club, and clearly a very good friend indeed to Dunckley who regularly borrowed his plane.   The main body of the plane rapidly sank to the sea bed.  When the cabin of the aeroplane was found and recovered three days later by local fishermen assisting with the search, the body of 33 year old Clayson was found intact, strapped and still sitting in his chair.  He had died by drowning.  It was the first and last time Mr. Clayson had ever been in an aeroplane.  His remains were brought by mail boat from Kingstown to Holyhead the following Monday morning, accompanied by his brother who had travelled to Ireland to identify him.  With the recovery of the fuselage, much to the relief of Ossie Esmonde T.D., it was established that the plane was registered, EI-AAH, to the Irish Aero Club.  It was only the 8th civil aeroplane to be registered in Ireland.

Two weeks after the tragedy on the 6^th June, a meeting was held in the Town Hall in Dun Laoghaire where it was proposed that ‘A fund should be raised’.  A committee was quickly established, and, as is the Irish way, then a subcommittee – A ‘Ways and Means’ subcommittee to establish and raise the fund through subscriptions.  The fund was established, not to assist the families of the deceased, as one might have expected, but to support the Dalkey Fishermen who had voluntarily given their time and service in the recovery of the aeroplane and the remains of Major Dunckley and Mr. Clayson.

It was the first fatal accident in civil aviation in the Free State.  It could have been so much sooner.  It was also sadly, the first of four fatal air crashes that summer.  On the 7^th July 1933, six weeks after the Dalkey Tragedy, Chief Instructor Elliot and Mr. William Ower, of the ‘Irish Aero Club’ crashed head-on with another machine, with the loss of both lives.  Extraordinarily the other machine managed to land safely.  On the 5^th August 1933, almost 4 years to the day since Dunckley’s mishap in Tallaght, Lieut. P.J Twohig of the Army Air Corp crashed in a field in Whitehall, Clondalkin after ‘touching another plane’.  Two days later on the 7^th August, Oscer Heron and Private Richard Tobin of the Army Air Corp, crashed during an aviation display in the Phoenix Park.  Both were fatally injured. 

 

At the funeral of Major Samuel Dunckley, his coffin was borne into the Church on the shoulders of members of the Irish Aero Club, as two planes from the club circled in the sky over Mount Jerome, dipping their wings to salute the dead airman. Lady Heath, assistant manager of Iona National Airways, with members of the Aero Club, flew over the cemetery during the burial.

At the inquest for Major Dunckley it was ascertained that the plane had been inspected immediately prior to Dunckley departing Baldonnel, and had been adjudged to be in perfect mechanical order. The accident was put down to ‘An error in human judgement’.

Having been formed as a Limited Company in 1928, the Irish Aero Club went into voluntary liquidation in November 1937.  

Albert Perris

A Ramble About Tallaght 

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