Irish Army Ranger Wing onboard a heavy lift aircraft during the Kabul mission. Image: Irish Defence Forces Irish Army Ranger Wing onboard a heavy lift aircraft during the Kabul mission. Image: Irish Defence Forces THE DEPARTMENT OF Defence refused efforts to provide two long-range second-hand heavy lift aircraft for the Irish Air Corps, not long before troops were forced to hitch a lift from other countries to rescue Irish citizens in Afghanistan.
Coveney’s denial was made during a late night imprompu interview about the Afghanistan crisis, in an RTE PrimeTime interview on 26 August when he stepped out from a reception, and the Minister appeared to be taken by surprise by the question:Coveney: ”Not that I’m aware of, I have to say.” The Journal was contacted by a number of security sources who revealed that, despite pleas for such an aircraft, that the Department of Defence refused offers of two second-hand long range heavy lift aircraft from a leasing company.
Sources said that the Irish team were forced to split into two groups to leave the country as a major threat of a terrorist attack developed in Afghanistan in August. Sources said an Irish Air Corps Lear jet was flown to the UAE but was forced to stay at a military base over confusion associated with Covid-19 PCR tests.
In that email the firm’s representative, based in Ballsbridge said: “We generally deal with the traditional leasing aircraft of Airbus and Boeing, however we also have and manage a number of niche aircraft, two of which are coming available. “We would be happy to have a call with the relevant persons if you feel should be involved,” the correspondence concluded.Our discovery of documents show that the next contact by Seraph was on 6 January 2021 when the same executive sent another email, this time to the ministerial email address for the Department of Defence.
The offer remained under consideration by the department with Defence Forces personnel and on 17 May 2021, the member of the Minister’s team wrote a lengthy email to Seraph Aviation Group. The senior civil servant said that the Defence Force’s “immediate priorities” for “air-based capability” was the acquisition of three Pilatus PC-12 aircraft for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.
The CASA aircraft mentioned have a max range of 4500kms, and it is unclear whether it would have the necessary airdefence counter-measures to land in Kabul. This is a report about nothing, trying to be a story.
Casa C295's? Not exactly C.17 Globemasters....🙄
GretaThunberg would be delighted and couldn't more countries be like the Irish global warming issues, but in all honesty why drive when u can get a lift
Quick question for the journal. I have a plane I can bring all the staff to Spain its old but still works who's coming?