A photograph of a tractor with its bucket raised parked alongside a helicopter in Enniscrone earlier this month has gone viral with one million views on Twitter alone.
The tractor poised to prevent a chopper from taking off in a field on the day that the MV Shingle ship was successfully sunk in Killala bay has attracted international attention online and across a range of media outlets.
The MV Shingle, formerly a smuggling ship, was seized by authorities ten years ago, and was sunk to create an artificial reef 4 km out in Killala Bay. It’s the first project of its kind nationally and it’s hoped it will attract many divers to the area to explore the wreckage.
The farmer that owns the land that the helicopter landed in, Johnny Kilcullen , told Midwest News last Monday that the chopper had not secured permission from him to land in his field, and made the point that he would not have had a problem - if he had been asked for use of his field.
This lunchtime, the pilot of the helicopter Pat Cowman, a Belmullet based business man, has outlined his side of what happened on the day. The helicopter is owned by Mayo man Joe Walsh.
Mr Cowman who was in Ennisrone to support the MV Shingle Project admits he did land the helicopter in error on Mr Kilcullen’s land, but insists he had sought and received permission to land 50 yards away.
He wishes that the MV Shingle Project got the one million twitter hits rather than the helicopter and parked tractor, and the subsequent pushing of the tractor out of the helicopter’s way by eight men in the field.
Pat spoke to Midwest News this lunchtime….
