Laurence Wilson
February 10 marks the first anniversary of the fatal Cork airport tragedy which left a Larne man feeling he was the luckiest person alive.
A year after the 19-seater Fairchild Metroliner crashed in thick fog, killing six people, Laurence Wilson says he has a new outlook on life.
“Small things that I used to get worked up about, and maybe panicked about, have become quite irrelevant. I look at the bigger picture now,” said the 55-year-old Larne Skills Development co-director.
Laurence and five other survivors are still awaiting the findings of an air accident investigation.
The Gleno man was quite literally inches from death when Manx2.com flight from Belfast ended so disastrously at 9.40am on Thursday, February 10, 2011. He was buried upside-down in mud after the turbo-prop plane’s fuselage gouged into grass off the runway during the third attempt at landing.
It is expected that the official report will be published in March. A preliminary investigation last year found no mechanical faults in the air frame, systems or power plants during the flight or at the airfield. It was ascertained, however, that a wing had clipped the ground, flipping the plane on to its back.
Investigators have also been trying to ascertain why the pilots did not divert to nearby airports.
The experience of Spanish pilot Jordi Gola Lopez (31) and his English co-pilot, Andrew Cantle (27), who both died, are forming part of the investigation. Among the passengers killed were businessman Richard Noble (48) from Belfast; accountant Patrick Cullinan (45), from Tyrone; businessman Brendan McAleese (39) from Kells; and harbour master Michael Evans (51), from Belfast.
Laurence was able to walk away from the crash and was treated for what he described at the time as “minor injuries” in Cork University Hospital, but he lives daily with the “big, big trauma” of the event.
The father-of-three told the Larne Times last February that he had been close to suffocating: “It was totally dark and I was hanging upside-down and totally disorientated in my seat, held in by my seat belt.
“When the plane hit the ground off the runway, the nose broke into pieces and the front end was stuck into the ground. The mud just came surging all the way up the inside of the plane. I was clawing away at it, but what I didn’t realise was that, because I was upside-down and didn’t know it, I was actually pushing down on the mud and getting nowhere.”
Laurence eventually managed to free himself. “I don’t know how long it took, but it felt like a long time when I couldn’t get a breath,” he explained.
One of the emergency team who freed Laurence from his constraint told him: “That was some miracle, you walking out of this.”
After an emotional reunion with his wife May and their daughters Emma, Donna and Laura, Laurence reflected on the lottery of life: “There were guys in front of me not lucky at all. There was a guy behind me not lucky at all.”
Laurence was on his way to give forklift truck-driving instruction to young people in Cork when the accident happened and it was to the familiar surroundings of work that he turned to help him get over the crash.
He founded Larne Skills Development Ltd 20 years ago with co-director with Malachy Delargy. The firm, based in its own premises in the Ledcom industrial estate at Bank Road, also owns Ballymena Skills and provides young people with training and tuition to help them gain employment through apprenticeships and courses in skills like mechanical and electrical engineering, business administration and customer service.
Laurence initially thought he could simply work like he had before the crash, but soon had to slow down. “I wasn’t myself and I didn’t know it, but Malachy and myself got together and talked about it and I realised that I had gone off the boil,” he explained.
It meant allowing others to take on some of the responsibilities, but Laurence loves his job and looks forward to getting to work. “The part I really enjoy is getting out and about, talking to employers and liaising with them and the apprentices and the apprentices’ parents to make sure that everybody is happy with how things are going,” he said.
“I look after issues like the health and safety of the trainees and their transport to and from work. I’m almost like a social worker in that regard.”
And Laurence has a more relaxed attitude since Cork. “It has affected me in a way, in that small things that I used to get worked up about, and maybe panicked about, have become quite irrelevant,” he reflected.
“I look at the bigger picture now. Whereas before I would maybe not be able to see the wood for the trees, now I focus on the wood. It means I don’t get as involved with the nitty-gritty any more.”
Immediately after the crash, Laurence reckoned he would have no fear of flying, but now says: “I have never flown since. I should have done on many occasions, and I haven’t done it. I can’t say I would never fly again, but who knows?
Who indeed?
Source: http://www.larnetimes.co.uk
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