From: Don Mullan
To: cormac.boomer
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 7:14 PM
Subject: Re: Tripoli protests
Cormac,
isn't this interesting? You can see why someone in authority in Malta may have panicked and decided to set up a sacrificial lamb. It's just a hunch. But it is worth pursuing.
I've spoken to Kevin McGrath at Air Traffic Control in Dublin. He can meet us next Wednesday, 6 March, at 11am, if that suits. If not Cormac, fet me know and we can rearrange. He is a really very nice man and he is doing his own research in advance of our visit. He has flight maps etc. ready for our visit. | have forwarded to him a summary of the attached document which | would appreciate you keeping to yourself.
Please give my best regards to Alice. Let me know if Wednesday suits.
Thanks again Cormac,
Don
~~ Original Message -----
From: cormac.boomer
To: Don Mullan
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 1:36 PM
Subject: Tripoli protests
Non
I have unearthed from my files a copy of Malta Times dated Sit November 1995 it is on fax paper and the print is very weak | will bring it with me to our meeting when it has been rearranged, this is a translation from a report by the Libyan Agency JANA, it states that in Tripoli crowds demonstrated in the streets and outside the Malta Embassy carrying portraits of Gaddafi,Islamic Jihad accused Israel of the killing ,which Israeli officials refused to confirm or deny a message read out to the Maltese said Malta must bear responsabilityof the killing on Libyian- Maltese ties,the Malta authorities and the ruling party there bear full responsibility for the results on all aspects of Arab- Maltese co-operation. Number of demonstrators put at around 500
Cormac
Year 1998
January 13
Received fax from Teresa Gornay and forwarded reports and information documents.
January 20
Fax from Cecilia, Tunisian government are now requesting the Malta government to make another request for the release of the ATC tapes via an International procedure called “ A Commission Rogatoire “.
We write to the Dept. Foreign Affairs Dublin requesting an explanation of this procedure and what it entails.
January 25
Letter from Cecilia containing copies of extracts from Malta Peoples Newspaper included a FrontPage article about Mathew.
February 13
Letter and file from Ms Ruth Shurman BBC Producer, letter apologises for being unable to have programme commissioned on Desmond and the incident, this was much as I had expected not with standing her obvious enthusiasm for the project when we met prior to Christmas.
March 9
Letter from Declan Bree TD with report of answer given in the Dial by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
March 13
Letter to Mr L. Maguire in Dublin Hon. Consulate of Tunisia in Ireland and enclose copies of seven documents for information and records.
We hear that Mandy has been speaking to GHQ at Cheltinm Farnborough re the Tunisian ATC tapes sent there by the Board of Enquiry on behalf of the Government of Malta, the recordings to be investigated.
We hear from Cecilia the Bartolo family received a anonymous threatening letter
March 14
Received fax from Cecilia with copy of Malta Times Newspaper, story Mandy and her solicitor in Malta their statement is quoted.
March 20
We hear from Cecilia that she had received another anonymous upsetting phone call.
From: Don Mullan <dbmullan@eircom.net>
To: cormac.boomer <cormac.boomer@ntiworld.com>
Sent: 09 October 2004 18:16
Subject: Re: re statement
Cormac,
You have absolutely nothing to apologise about. You and Alice, more than most, understand the trauma of the Bigley family and you also know that the only reason why both the British and Irish Governments were showing any real concern was because of the public attention and support largely generated by Mr, Bigley's family. All you and Alice have ever tried to do for Desmond, sadly without gaining the same level of support, is the same,
Hopefully, Mr. Bigley's murder will help to focus renewed attention and interest in the nightmare you and Alice have been abandoned to. The truth is, while Desmond and his fellow disappeared may have died in a plane crash, it is also a very real probability that they too where murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of Shaqui. All you have ever asked for is that the matter be thoroughly, transparently and honestly investigated - and with the support of the Irish Government, the guardians of Irish citizens carrying irish passports in the world.
Cormac, don't ever apologise. God forbid, but if I were in your shoes, I would be doing exactly the same. I just wish I could have done more to help you and Alice.
Take care,
Don
From: John Burke <johnpaulburke@yahoo.com>
To: <cormac.boomer@ntiworld.com>
Sent: 07 October 2004 18:35
Subject: PIPER LANCE / Sunday Tribune
To: Mr Cormac Boomer
From: John Burke, News, Sunday Tribune, 15 Lwr Baggot
St, Dublin 2.
Dear Mr Boomer,
I am contacting you having received the email you forwarded to our editorial email at the Sunday Tribune newspaper.
We would be very interested in speaking to you in relation to the disappearance of your son in 1995 and the role of the Irish department of foreign affairs in light of the Ken Bingley situation and your comment in relation to a sense of bitterness over the handling of your son's case by the department, in contrast to their action in the more recent case.
Please ring me at the following numbers if you can. We would like to cover this subject for publication in the newspaper this coming weekend (Sunday 10 Oct) and so if you could contact me tomorrow (Friday 8 October) that would be ideal.
Alternatively, if you wish to email me in reply and leave your phone number(s), I will ring you at any time tomorrow that suits you
My mobile phone number is 0876371468 and my desk landline to the Sunday Tribune newsroom is 016314310.
I look forward to hearing from you Mr Boomer and discussing your comments further.
Regards,
John Burke
News reporter
Sunday Tribune
15 Lwr Baggot St
Dublin 2
0876371468
016314310
jburke@tribune.ie
The mystery flight of 9H-ABU
The recently published report of The Board of Enquiry into the mysterious disappearance of Piper Lance PA32-9H-ABU on a flight from Djerba in Tunisia to Louga in Malta in the early hours of Sunday 3 December 1995 the content of which will have surprised no one who has followed the slow ham fisted progress of its long drawn out deliberations.
Tn paragraph 1-4 the report states this enquiry consumed four long years of bureaucratic delays but does not identify where or why these logjams occurred, everyone involved with this enquiry has been aware of the fiasco of the Tunisian ATC tapes and the failure to produce other relevant documents requested by the Board but never perused by the enquiry itself, but then when sitting this Board could hardly have been accused of being dynamic with sittings slotted in on a late afternoons and lasting on an average one hour with an occasional extension of fifteen minutes.
The decision to blame Catain Bartolo for the supposed accident ( if it occurred as claimed ) was an easy option and provided the members of the Board with an excuse not to delve to deeply into the activities and failures of their own Department of Civil Aviation for its failure to monitor and enforce the safety regulations of the Tnternational Authority.
It is now a matter of record that the Board did make seven recommendations with regard to future safety procedures to be introduced by the Civil Aviation Authority but many will ask, especially the relatives if the missing why these measures were not already in place.
Cormac Boomer
Hi Don
Thanks for the alert, I am on Norton so am relatively safe, I have made several attempts to start the write up on Desmond but have not progressed very far, however in the week you went to France I stumbled on an item in my files that will interest you, it is something I should have thought of before now.
Did I ever mention that the late Paddy Deviin, RIP, and Alice are full cousins, you probably know his sister Rose Perry she is a close friend of Ms Drennan the legal Rep. to the GRRA. In March 96 Rose rang me to enquire about then ongoing search for Desmond, she informed me that at the weekend she had been at a conference in Dublin which was attended by political figures one of whom was Tony Gregory TD whom she has known for many years, during one of the informal breaks at this conference, she was in a group when someone who knew of the family comnection enquired of Rose if there had been any developments in the search for information related to the disappearance of the plane, (I have checked this with her last week ) that during the discussion, Tony said, oh that plane was shot down by a missile, when asked where he got that information from he said he got his info. from Foreign Affairs.
Looking back on the many visits which Alice and I made to Foreign Affairs nothing othis nature was ever hinted at, or even implied, the only information Mr Lawton ever imparted to us was to repeat that he had instructed the Ambassador in Rome to monitor the situation closely, when on one occasion we suggested a meeting with the Minister Mr. Spring, he said that any answers the minister would give would be based on information which his department would supply, so we did not press for a meeting, hence information was always a one way street, I informing them of what action and lines of enquiry I was perusing .but no feedback from FA There followed a period when weitten questions would be submitted to Mr Spring by Emmett Stagg and Declan Bree, Declan would then forward a copy of the official answer to me the contents always the same i.e. no further developments Rome is continuing to monitor the situation
The repetitiveness of the replies prompted me in March 98 to seek a meeting with Declan, this took place in his constituency office in Sligo town where I presented him with an information pack, while assuring me of his ongoing interest he was noncommittal and promised to keep monitoring the case but questions in the Dail petered out shortly before the change of government.
In May 98 my younger brother died in Wolverhampton, and about six weeks later his wife sent some papers of his among which was an item of correspondence between himself and a second cousin of ours who resides in Glasgow, this cousin of ours was originally from Donegal and of our own generation,she has a grown up family one of whom is a daughter who works in the UK diplomatic service, at the time of the correspondence she was posted as a private secretary in the Embassy in Saudi Arabia, it would appear that when the details of the missing plane and its passengers became known she connected Desmond’s name to my brother in Wolverhampton. It appeared from the letter that when the daughter was home on leave she had conveyed to her mother that it was understood at the Embassy that this plane was brought down by a missile, on foot of this letter I contacted my cousin in Glasgow we had a long discussion about our loss , she remembered writing to my brother and the message she conveyed ,she informed me her daughter would be home on leave in about three months time I emphasised my need to discuss these matters with her daughter, could she ask her daughter to contact me and I would travel to Glasgow to meet her at her convenience, I did not divulge any of my own information and when about three month later I contacted my cousin again I was told that leave had been put back but my request for a meeting would be passed on as soon as the daughter returned on leave, needless to say there was complete silence from that quarter, it is obvious the daughter did not want to talk to me or alternatively she did not get my message, mothers can sense danger and can be very protective.of their children.
It is strange how the same stories surface from different sources, it makes one wonder what kind of underhand dealings are going on even in our own government circles, this will give you food for thought after which give me a ring
Cormac
THEORIES - Compliled by Cormac Boomer and Daniel Aquilina 3/12/98
01. The plane left Djerba, it encountered bad weather and it was an aviation accident
02. The plane was removed, passengers and all, from Djerba Airport
03. Pilot took off and deviated from flight plan onto Libyan airspace without authorisation, and was either intercepted or actually crashed on the Libyan Coast, thus explaining the Distress Signal message traced in inland Libya and the lack of surface debris.
- There is no evidence to sunstantiate these above 2 theories, there is a lot of hearsay and opinions expressed by several ‘involved’ sources.
- The rumours and even newspaper reports linking our Story to Shqaqi's assassination cannot be discounted also due to the fact that Prior to 3.12.95, reports in the local media were pointing fingers at private Maltese pilots and their aircraft with possible involvment in taking the Mossad agents out of Maita.
- Testimony of E. Mangion on 5.6.96 Piper Lance a couple of months before , deviated into Libyan airspace and was not reported.
QUESTIONS STILL UNANSWERED
There is no eye-witness in the first place to tell us that he actually saw the plane leave.
We have no signed embarcation cards / documentation. All we have is a useless flight manifest.
Malcolm Kemph - untraceable, possible witness, he was supposed to be one of the passengers
It is doubtful! that there was sufficient life in the battery, if the alternator belt was faulty, was it efficiently charging the battery. The power left wouldn't even be enough to get the plane off the ground.
Would an experienced aviator lack knowledge of his aircraft , to be crazy enough to take off knowing that the battery is not being replenished with power for the rest of the flight.
It defies logic / common sense to suggest that Bartolo would not only put the life of the passengers at risk but even his own life,
On the ground, was the plane serviced and the belt changed and by whom? From info. we have this is a specialised job requiring the removal of the prop. and requiring 3/4 working hours which in fact suggets that the plane would have to be taken off the runway and into a hangar, since the job also requires specialised tools and more than one person. (Lehman confirms)
Search was specialised and wide-ranging and yet, nothing was seen or found, particularly by the P3 Orion. (Business Weekly 11.04.96)
Pilot Gatt - the plane at its maximum velocity point would begin to break up in mid-air prior to any impact whatsoever with any surface. If this is the case, then one would expect to find debris spread over a wide-ranging area. Nothing was found. Six persons, six luggages containg clothing, shoes, papers, an entire aircraft.
Distress Signal traced in inland Libya. Not properly and seriously investigated.
Sea Serv Offsprey Vessel - this allegedly picked up a message indicating co-ordinates of the plane going down. These co-ordinates are barely 4 miles from British Gas Platform and thus, when BG were contacted they said that if the plane really went down in those co-ordinates then they would have definitely noticed and would have been the first to give assistance, therefore, this report in their view, was not correct. Again, report not investigated and source.
Gonfulut reported 6 men on a life raft waving for assistance, searches were sent to the area indicated and there was nothing, then this report was cancelled on the grounds of a "misunderstanding". In the area (according to Mr Boomer), there were no surface vessels where the Gonfulut was reported to be. Moreover, the Gonfulut is not registered anywhere in the world. Not investigated.
Boomer - AFM member told him in May 1997 that "my Government knows that that plane did not go down in the water."
Tunisian Inquiry starts with the plane ready for take off without any info. About boarding passes, passengers, supervisors, who authorised take-off etc. How serious, who examined debris, which witnesses were heard, which tapes?
No Satellite Images - US and Russia
Daniel and Search party went to the point where the fishermen allegedly picked up the debris, nothing was found.
Debris - there are no sea urchins, cockles, salt pigment or corrosion on the debris that one expects to find in aluminium components exposed to corrosive activities of salt water for 10 months.
Wallet and Keys - everything still in extremely good condition and rather far-fetched.
Fishermen / Fishing Vessel- never questioned or even identified. The fishermen should be asked whether the keys and the wallet were collected as ‘caught’ in the wreckage or not. Did the fishermen pick anything else up which they did not hand over to the authorities or threw it back into the sea thinking it was irrelevant at the time, only realising later, maybe, that it could have had some importance.
There is quite a time gap between the presumed actual finding and the actual notification to the Maltese Govt. by the Tunisian authorities - could this be elaborated on? (3 weeks / 1 month)
All Djerba airport employees employed at the time of the accident should_be questioned to see the possibility of any conversations, details, curiosities regarding the missing 6 men individually or as a group, the flight itself, past flights etc.
Bartolo flew previously over Libyan Airspace - not reported to superiors Inquiry visited Tunisia more than 1 year and a half after the incident - why?
Hotel Registration form - not original, tampered with, what about the other 3 men?
Why were the other passengers on the outbound flight not brought to witness?
Serial No on debris - indellible ink, no actual metal plate with no. embossed or engraved.
Phone calls prior to departure - 3 men - they never called.
Debris not sent to a Laboratory as suggested by Lehman. The Lehman Report - shown to one family only upon request
Mr Sills - why did Desmond and Gorny separate in Djerba and why didn't Sills tell his own colleagues that the aircraft was not in proper condition.
Unique Travel - had to hand in documents, hasn't happened yet
Maltese tapes - why were they recycled ?????????
Forensic tests on the debris - in our view are incomplete.