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From the Front Lines:

First Responders Testify to the Horrors of the Kanishka Bombing

On the morning of June 23, 1985, as Air India 182 was cruising along the Irish coast, there were no indications of the tragedy about to unfold. There was no Mayday call—not even a distress signal.

“One second it was there, and the next it had gone,” an air traffic controller later recalled. “It was like suddenly losing a telephone line.”

At 7:14 a.m. GMT, the aircraft vanished from radar. All attempts to contact the plane—scheduled to land at London Heathrow an hour and 40 minutes later—failed. A major emergency was declared, and the Marine Rescue Coordination Centre in Shannon launched a massive international effort.

All aircraft in the vicinity were alerted. Ships, fishing trawlers, and oil rig vessels changed course to join the search.

The response included among others:
• Ireland’s Air Corps, Naval Service, and Garda Síochána (national police)
• The UK’s Royal Navy and Royal Air Force
• US Air Force
• Multiple lifeboats from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
• Land-based services including Shannon Aeradio, Valentia Coast Station, the Meteorological Service, and the Southern Health Board

One of the first ships to arrive at the crash site was the MV Laurentian Forest, a Canadian merchant vessel en route from Quebec to Dublin. Its captain, Roddy McDougall, later described the grim recovery effort in a letter read into the official record during Canada’s Commission of Inquiry into the Bombing of Air India Flight 182.

Mark Stagg, third officer aboard the Laurentian Forest, also testified before the Commission. He recalled pulling bodies from the sea—none wearing life jackets, some still in airline slippers, with the strong smell of aviation fuel in the air. “No one came away from that experience untouched,” he said.

Superintendent Thomas Hayes of An Garda Síochána (Ireland’s national police) also testified—outlining the immense logistical and emotional challenge of coordinating such an operation on Irish shores.

🎥 Watch the full testimony of Mark Stagg and Thomas Hayes, and hear Roddy McDougall’s letter read aloud, before Canada’s Commission of Inquiry (September 27, 2006)