Episode 4 Real Lives Reunited

Extraordinary stories from a shared past...

There were 12 people on board the aircraft that day.

Six of us made it, six of us didn't.

..bonds forged in tragedy...

-Sorry!

-..and triumph...

THEY CHEER

The little girl that you helped 15 years ago.

..brought together by fate...

It just overwhelmed me a bit.

..but separated by time...

God, where did all those years go?

..decades on, we reunite them.

The phrase life or death situation

is probably one that's much overused,

but that's exactly what happened to the two men in our first story

when, back in 2011, they survived a devastating plane crash.

And today, finally,

they're going to get the chance to thank the rescuers

who saved their lives.

On the morning of the 10th of February, 2011,

a routine flight was scheduled to leave Belfast City Airport bound for

Cork. Brendan Mallon from Bangor was a regular flyer on the route,

and booked on board that day.

I was going to be spending a couple of days down there.

I work in the travel business and we had a travel agency in Bandon.

Fellow passenger Laurence Wilson remembers the fog that morning being

the worst he'd ever seen.

I live in Glenoe and it's in a valley.

Well, it was absolutely pea soup, you know,

you couldn't have seen your finger in front of you.

I remember driving really, really slow.

Particularly bad.

Despite the weather, the 19-seater Flight 7100 would leave as planned.

It was just two single lines of seats,

so I went to sit at the first seat on the left-hand side.

I felt that was a little bit too close to where

the cockpit curtain was.

I then went to sit on the second seat behind that.

But then found that the third seat I thought had a little bit more

legroom in it, so that's why I eventually ended up in that seat.

I think if I had been first on the plane,

I would've been right in behind the pilot,

but because them seats had already been taken I ended up sitting just

behind the wing.

The Manx2 plane left Belfast with ten passengers and

the two pilots on board just after eight o'clock in the morning.

As they began their descent into Cork, it was clear the airport

was experiencing the same fog as Belfast.

You might as well open your eyes in a dark room.

You see nothing. It was just that foggy.

And the first sign of trouble was that the plane actually started to

just come back up, now, not a big, sudden go,

but it came back up through the cloud.

Minutes later they started to descend again.

All of a sudden, the plane just went straight up into the air, like,

more than 45, just a real tight, went up, out, and everybody, "Whoa,"

that's when everybody went, "Whoa, that wasn't good."

At one point one of the pilots came back and announced to everybody that

there was fog at the airport and we were going to have to go into

a holding pattern for a period of time.

So, after 20 minutes,

the curtains opened again and I remember the pilot going,

just, thumbs up,

"That's it, we're going for it," so at that stage I did really pay

attention because it hadn't happened to me before.

Then all of the sudden I just seen grass,

and the grass would have been,

I'm guessing, like, sort of ten feet,

and I knew we were going far, far too quick.

I looked out the window to my right-hand side.

I just saw grass.

That would've been at the moment that the plane tipped onto its side

and that's the last memory that I have.

ALARM RINGS

The emergency crash siren was sounded.

And at the airport's fire station,

new recruit Gary Feheely was about to experience first-hand what he'd

been trained to do.

I never expected my first incident to be

a baptism of fire.

With the fog so thick on the ground,

not even air traffic control were able to identify

where the plane had landed.

But a snap decision by the team in one of the fire engines to head out

towards a particular section of runway 17

would prove incredibly lucky.

On board, station officer John McCarthy.

It was just luck, really, that we decided to go that way.

It was extremely foggy. You could see the length of your nose, really.

But just as we came through, we could see a glow in the distance.

The plane had flipped over at high speed and careered down the runway

for nearly 200 metres before coming to a stop on the grass alongside.

The front fuselage had been crushed on impact and with the passengers

suspended upside down and strapped into their seats,

mud and water began gushing into the cabin,

filling the already squeezed space.

So, we were fighting for air and the gutters come up to, I'm sure, over

my waist, so I was actually drowning.

But that wasn't all. Both of the plane's engines had caught fire.

The panic now was to get the passengers out.

And you could hear the guy in the back screaming, "It's on fire,

"it's on fire!" He obviously thought that was it, your number's up.

Did I think I was going to die? Yes, I did.

With just moments to spare before the fires spread to the cabin,

two teams of firefighters were able to put the blaze out.

If it was a training exercise,

it possibly would be the worst scenario you could guess.

Carnage. That's what it was.

Yeah, you knew. No, there was people that you knew were dead.

We got a crowbar, we went to the hold door at the back of

the aircraft and broke open the hold door.

Whenever I heard the banging I just shouted, "Yes, there's people here,

"there's people here," to let them know that there was somebody living.

Extremely tight space inside.

The mud was, you'd have to come in the front

and we had to just crawl our way in.

I couldn't get my hand down in to actually pull the buckles forward

and I was trying hard, like, pushing and pushing and I couldn't do it.

When we got to Laurence,

he was strapped into his seat, upside down,

so we cut his seatbelt to remove him from his seat.

The rescue team went about freeing those they knew to be alive.

The silence that was there, it was as if everyone was busy doing what

they were doing. There was so much happening but yet it was so quiet.

Ambulances took the injured to hospital,

but six bodies were recovered.

Four passengers and the two pilots had not survived the crash.

I just remember I stepped down and I soon realised,

I seen the carnage.

I realised how lucky I was to be able to actually walk away from it.

Brendan Mallan has no memory of the drama unfolding.

Today for the first time,

he'll hear from his rescuer exactly what happened.

It will be probably difficult to hear, but I think now, five plus

years on, I'm probably in the right state of mind to hear it

and to deal with it.

Brendan and Laurence are once more travelling to Cork Airport,

this time by train.

They'll be reunited for the first time with the men who put their own

lives at risk that day five years ago to save their lives.

For me the big thing is being able to express my gratitude for what was

done that day. It was courageous, it was professional, it was,

you know, why I'm possibly sitting here today.

It'd be nice just to shake hands with them.

I think that'd be good.

At Cork Airport, and in a coincidental twist,

the fog has returned just like that fateful morning.

It's like deja vu. Definitely makes it surreal, with the fog

and the stuff still being here.

Bit...bit daunting.

Waiting airside to meet them,

firefighters John and Gary who were the first on the scene that day.

-All right?

-Pleasure to meet you.

-Lovely to meet you.

-Gary.

-Gary?

-You're Gary and you're Laurence?

I'm Laurence.

So, back together again.

-Yes, indeed.

-After five years!

-Five years.

-Under much better circumstances.

-Oh, yes.

-You were just a recruit that day.

-I was, I was. I was a new recruit.

-At the end of a training session.

-Yeah, yeah.

-With the real thing.

-That was like the final exam.

I'd say from your point of view it was a surreal experience actually.

Brendan says to me I think I was absolutely, completely gone.

My first memories were from some point over the next day or two

in Cork University Hospital, little flashes,

so it took a while for my brain to start working reasonably like normal

-again.

-Brendan, you would've been too far up the plane

in the wreckage to get to you...

I'm not even sure if I was conscious or unconscious at the time

-cos I've got no memory.

-Yeah, you were talking to us.

-I was conscious? Right, OK.

-Yeah.

We were just reassuring you, reassuring you that we'd be getting

-up to you. We'd have to release one or two first...

-Before we could get to you.

Thank you very much, for if it wasn't for your expertise on the

day, we wouldn't have been having this today.

So we wouldn't. It was your expertise that got us out and that's

the bottom line, so thank you very much for helping us out.

It was a total team effort and we're only two of a group...

Just doing our job. There was 20 plus of us there.

Photographs taken soon after the crash allow the firefighters to

explain what they had to do to get the survivors out.

Can you remember whereabouts I would've been?

-Brendan, you would've been around this area, inside the engine.

-Yeah.

That's crazy looking at that now.

With that angle, Laurence would've been on the other side...

I'm in the other, yes, I was upside down.

Terrible. This must've been...

-Two days after.

-Two days after it they picked it up and...

Whereabouts did you guys manage to come in to try and

to get people out from?

This was our entry point here through the cargo hold door,

there was another entry point cut in here at the side.

-Brendan, I think this is where you were.

-Right, yeah, OK.

-Round here.

It's crazy looking at that now.

-Yeah.

-You know,

it's horrific whenever you see all the crew

and look at how many people's here.

Awful.

The reality of just how lucky they are to be alive

is really hitting home.

And after five years of not knowing,

Brendan is beginning to learn about his rescue.

Later in the programme he'll meet

the man who pulled him from the plane

and finally complete the jigsaw of what happened to him on that day.

1970s Belfast -

night-time curfews, bombed out stores, security gates...

..where the black and white pictures told a true story of a grey life,

a city just about surviving.

But also a city of contradictions where people made their own fun,

places of light and oases of refuge away from the reality,

places of fun with a hint of risque,

where they snubbed their nose to the puritanical Ulster of the time.

BIG BAND JAZZ MUSIC

They called them the Penthouse Poppets,

Belfast's answer to the bunny girls,

their sexy presence at the top floor of the Europa Hotel providing a very

welcome distraction to what was going on in the street

some 12 floors down.

Rosey Hunter is now a grandmother.

I'm meeting up with her at her shop in White Abbey.

More than 40 years ago, she had a very different life.

-You have a gorgeous shop here.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-I really love it.

-You were a Poppet?

I was a Poppet and we had some of the most wonderful, fun times ever.

The girls were a sensation and I thought they were ever so glamorous.

So, how did you become a Poppet?

A friend of mine was a Poppet and she said to me, you know,

they were looking for more girls,

so I went down and we seen the girl there and she said, "No problem."

And then she produced this outfit, which was a total laugh, like,

an absolute hoot.

-Have you still got it?

-Have I? You're crazy in the head!

-JO LAUGHS

-No way! Absolutely not.

MUSIC: Dance Yourself Dizzy by Liquid Gold

# ..Tonight, you're in for such a treat

# Tonight, put on your dancing... #

'The outfit certainly caused ripples in the city -

'low-cut top and high-cut leg, and all in crushed velvet.'

So, it was quite low-cut, quite high around the legs,

you had your legs out and kind of a bit of your cleavage out,

was it not a bit risque?

I hadn't got very much cleavage, Jo, to be honest with you,

and that's where tights were a wonder

and the Wonderbra was just a sensation.

# ..Dance, dance, dance. #

And while London's bunny girls got, well, their bunny tail,

the Belfast version got a more sophisticated but equally

strategically placed bow.

It had a white silk bow at the bottom, on your bottom,

which when I used to iron before I went to work I used to tell my mummy

I put it in the front of me.

Did they know what you did?

My father really didn't because

he would've been so worried being in the Europa, with it being

bombed so many times, it wouldn't have been about the job,

it would've been the place where I was working,

so for quite a while he didn't.

-And you didn't tell him?

-No.

It was on a need-to-know basis and he didn't need to know.

The Penthouse nightclub was renowned for big bar tabs,

big tips and the best of service.

Paddy McAnerney still works at the hotel nearly 50 years on.

Back then he was bar manager.

It was a place to go in the evenings to relax and enjoy.

And you got the quay brigade in, you know, with their fancy motors.

Some yuppies, but some down to earth and a lot of businesspeople and you

got to know them all.

23-year-old Michael Riddich couldn't believe his luck when he snared the

job of the Penthouse cocktail barman.

To be honest, for the first couple of weeks I was here I couldn't keep

my eyes off them.

There you go. I mean, I was a young man, so...

They were sexy, let's admit it.

And I suppose that's what they were selling, the glamour.

On a Friday, Saturday night,

there was a queue out the side at the security hut

for people trying to get into the Penthouse.

The lucky clientele who did manage to get in included visiting

journalists. They used the hotel as a refuge from the news they'd been

tasked to cover.

But regardless of their celebrity status,

everyone had to abide by the rules

and Rosey's cousin Mary Stiles remembers management

made sure of that.

We were the Poppets.

We weren't allowed to be touched.

All we had to do was parade around and serve drinks.

Well, did you feel safe?

-You didn't ever feel like it was...

-Never.

-..seedy or demeaning in any way?

-Oh, no.

But it wasn't seedy or demeaning.

It was a beautiful place to work in.

We were there to have fun and make some money.

You had a float, so you rolled the notes up and put them

down one of your breasts.

So, that was your kitty.

Was it something you were proud of?

Would you have spoken openly about being a Poppet?

Most definitely. Yeah.

I wish I could take 40 years back and do it again, yeah.

It's time for the Penthouse Poppets to come back to the Europa.

Rosey and Mary haven't met in more than a decade.

Good to see you! Hello!

-Hi, darling, how are you?

-Very well, how are you?

-Lovely to see you.

-And you.

-Look at you.

My God! It's unbelievable, isn't it?

-It is.

-Hi, Jo!

Lovely to see you again.

Nice to see you, darling.

I can't believe how alike you are.

Oh, you're like twins!

-The terrible twins!

-Well, ladies, you know why we're here.

-Oh, yes.

-Yes.

-Let's check out the Penthouse.

Come on, come on!

Oh, I can't wait.

This is where we straighten up our uniform.

Uh-huh. Fixed your bow at the back.

So, ladies, it's time to relive your youth.

We're on the 12th floor.

-Ooh, wow!

-There you go.

-There it is. Go and have a look.

-Oh, my goodness.

-It's so bright! We've only seen it in the dark.

-My goodness.

Look at the beautiful view still there.

-It's so beautiful, isn't it?

-It's amazing, isn't it?

Rosey, do you remember this?

-Meet and greet.

-"Good evening, sir.

"Good evening, sir."

The dance floor's still there.

And that was the bar, do you remember?

Then the kitchen over there.

-Yeah.

-Rosey.

"I'll just put your drinks down, sir. Thank you."

A lifetime away.

Aw.

God, where did all those years go?

I know.

And every bit of it was fun.

Fun and laughter.

Yeah. It's like you can hear the laughter, can't you?

And the band playing Cracklin' Rosie and

Proud Mary.

-Well, ladies. Has it changed much?

-Hi, Jo.

-Is it nice to be back?

-What have you got in that bag? It is.

-What have you got...? Oh!

-Another small surprise.

-OK.

Small being the operative word.

Obviously I couldn't get my hands on an original, but

does that take you back?

-Oh, my Lord!

-THEY LAUGH

With a little bow?

-Bows.

-Stiff bow?

-The bow is cute.

-The bow is cute.

-It's cute.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Maybe the sleeves a bit shorter, like, a bit higher.

Yeah. Cos... The legs used to start up here.

-Up there?

-Yeah, up there and down here.

-Jeepers, there's nothing to

-it.

-No, well, there was nothing to us either.

As Poppets you waited on everyone hand and foot

and today it's your turn.

-Lovely.

-So...enjoy.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Have a lovely afternoon.

-See you later.

-Can't remember last time I was served.

-No.

Maybe we're having duck.

And on hand to be of service,

their former co-workers Paddy McAnerney and Michael Riddich.

-Good afternoon, ladies.

-Good afternoon.

-Awk...

-And yourself.

-Michael?

-Yeah!

-Oh, my goodness!

-That's Michael.

-Paddy.

-Is that Mad Mary from Manchester?

-It is, it is!

The mad one!

-Right, girls, it's great to see yous all again.

-Great to see you,

-too, Paddy.

-Well, cheers, everybody.

-Cheers.

-Yeah, it's lovely to see you all again.

-Great memories.

-Happy times.

-Happy times.

-And many more of them.

Where did you get this English accent?

Oh, I've lived in Manchester for 45 years.

It's not 45 years since I've seen you, is it?

It is since you've seen me.

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God. Rosey was 17 when she started.

-16.

-16!

-16.

-She was 18.

-I was not.

-No, she was not.

You told us that. To get her started.

-ROSEY LAUGHS

-Did all the barmen fancy

the Poppets?

-Not really.

-THEY LAUGH

What about Rosey and me?

We had a little romantic liaison for a while.

-Had you?

-And you didn't know about that?

I tell you what, I had to hold on to my bow with you.

Cos it was crooked.

It wasn't crooked!

It was, I kept trying to fix your bow.

Well, we had a good laugh.

I think I used to live on my tips most of the time.

You lived on the girls' tips.

They made them. They made them and gave you a few of them.

But, sure, we'd have done it for nothing, wouldn't we have? We loved it that much.

-Oh, aye.

-We had a good laugh.

-We had.

-But I was a good sprinter, wasn't I, Paddy?

-Yeah!

-I'm glad you were never caught.

THEY LAUGH

The world of the Penthouse Poppets is so far removed from what we'd

expect today and what we'd accept,

but for the Europa team back then it was escapism from the dark days of

the Troubles.

That team provided light and laughter in the darkest of days.

On the 10th of February, 2011,

a plane travelling from Belfast crash-landed at Cork Airport,

killing six of the 12 people on board.

Firefighters from all over Cork were directed to the airport.

A team of over 30 worked to get survivors out of the stricken plane.

Today, two of the survivors of the crash,

Brendan Mallon and Laurence Wilson,

are in Cork to say thank you to those who rescued them.

Brendan, who has no recollection of the tragic events,

is keen to learn how he was rescued.

The exact whys and wherefores of how I was

cut out, if I was cut out,

and who dragged me out and whether I was conscious in any way,

shape or form at that stage, no, that's something I don't know,

and part of me would like to know that,

part of me probably is a little

concerned about knowing that, as well.

Brendan is going to meet face to face for the first time

the man who pulled him out of the plane

and finally learn what happened to him on that day in 2011.

Firefighter Michael Lynch is based at the nearby Ballincollig

fire station.

He'd been out shopping when his pager went off

telling him to report to base.

None of us in the station would've attended a plane

crash before, like, so, you know, this was going to be all new to us.

We didn't know how big a plane it was or how many people were there,

so it was pretty intense at the time.

The adrenaline sets in a bit and you realise, you know, that you're going

to something very serious.

You have to kind of set that aside and get into work mode, like.

Once at the airport, Michael's team were directed out to the crash site

and into the overturned plane.

I heard a person shouting out, who I now know was Brendan Mallon,

and he had serious injuries and he was in serious pain,

because he was rolling and shouting, you know, "Get me out of here,

"get me out of here!"

And so I had to make room and cut away some other

seats at the time.

On the day, Brendan made a snap decision not to sit at the front of the plane.

He knows that's likely to have saved his life.

Other people did sit in those seats afterwards

and they and their families aren't as lucky as me and mine

at the moment, and that is something that always is

in the back of the mind and I'm always very conscious of that.

He was trapped in such a small space

the firefighters had to use special cutters to rip out the seats in

front before they could get to him.

I would've carried him over the first bit

and there would've been two lads that were positioned behind me.

Between us then we would've taken him out of the plane and handed him

over then to the paramedics.

Brendan was taken to Cork University Hospital and would spend the next

three weeks there and in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

He had more than a dozen broken bones, including one in his neck

that was millimetres away from killing or paralysing him.

Looking at that wreckage of the plane,

seeing where I would've been sitting

and seeing what way that part of the plane was crushed down,

that was actually a very difficult thing to see.

To think and to understand that I had got out of that was difficult to

get my head around.

Until today, Brendan has always believed he was unconscious

throughout the whole rescue,

but he's learned that he was awake and talking.

Now he's going to meet for the first time Michael Lynch,

the firefighter who got him out.

-Nice to meet you, Brendan.

-At last. How are you keeping?

-I'm good, good.

-Michael Lynch. Nice to meet you.

-How are you?

-Good.

I remember you now, all right. Actually seeing the face now again.

Today is the first day in five years that I've realised that I was

-actually conscious throughout that.

-Yeah.

-I've got absolutely no memory

-at all, so...

-I'll try and help you fill in a bit of the blanks...

That's what I was hoping to try and catch on to.

It's really hard to get my head around the fact that that bit of the

-fuselage that was so squished down...

-Yeah.

-..that's where I was and other people were.

-Yeah.

-It's just unbelievable.

-You were actually being squashed down inside there.

And I could see that your neck was bent over, like.

You know, so, there was very little room to move inside there.

I would think that you were probably unconscious for a while...

-Oh, right, OK.

-Because we were in there for a good ten minutes before

-we heard you calling at all, because we were trying to get somebody else out at the time.

-OK.

And that's when we heard you screaming and calling for help.

And you were conscious then.

I had a little conversation when we did meet.

-Right, OK.

-And when I got to you initially,

and all you were saying to me was, "I'm sorry," and apologising.

-Really?

-For shouting and for roaring and you were asking, "Get me out

"of here." You kept apologising to me to say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"

which was kind of, you know...

Can I apologise again about me shouting at you?

No, not at all, because, I mean, you know,

we were just trying to get you out as quick as we could.

I knew you were in serious pain and I knew you obviously would've

had serious injuries, but I couldn't see any

physical injuries on you.

-It was a hard road.

-Yeah.

-There's no doubt about that.

But I was well looked after by people in the hospitals and my wife

and family and friends all looked after me well.

From my point of view and my family's point of view,

we're eternally grateful to yourself and everybody that was involved in

the rescue here, cos without that and without that hard work and

dedication and professionalism I probably wouldn't be here today, so,

genuinely, from the heart, thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Good to see you.

-OK.

Why did I survive that day and others didn't is a question

again that I've been asked quite a lot. It's a difficult one to answer

because some people weren't that lucky.

Why was I lucky and others weren't?

There's no balance there.

I think it was just one of those things that was pure luck.

Luck or fate,

Laurence Wilson and Brendan Mallon owe their lives to the team on the

ground at Cork that February morning.

I'm a survivor. They're the guys that need the praise.

Between the rescuers and the

rescue service and the Cork University Hospital,

them's the people that need the praise in this.

We only happened to be there at the time.

Reunited at last

and now they can piece together the traumatic moments of their past and

say thank you to the people who gave them back their futures.