2017 Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 crash

Four rescuers died on 14 March 2017 when Rescue 116 struck Blackrock Island in darkness and poor weather while supporting a fisherman’s evacuation off County Mayo. The helicopter had flown from Dublin to relay communications, not to carry the injured man, yet it vanished into the sea beside a lighthouse nobody saw until the lighthouse keepers raised the alarm. Their bodies were later recovered from the water and eastern shore, leaving behind a preventable loss born of distance, fatigue and the cruelty of night.