Captain Dara Fitzpatrick has been remembered through an engraving made on the side of a British helicopter calling her “Queen of the Skies”.
Niamh Fitzpatrick, Dara’s sister, took to Twitter to share photos of the Sea King Helicopter, which bears Dara’s name and ‘Banríon na Spéartha’, the Irish translation of ‘Queen of the Skies’. “How lovely to see the Sea King helicopter named after Dara in flight. You can just about make out her name on the side,” Niamh captioned underneath the image.
Dara was tragically killed on March 14 2017 after her Rescue 116 helicopter crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the Mayo coast. She was the most senior of the Irish Coast Guard’s search and rescue pilots at the time of her death.
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All four crew members on board the helicopter lost their lives in the incident. While Dara and pilot Mark Duffy’s bodies were retrieved in the aftermath, the remains of winchman Ciaran Smith and winch operator Paul Ormsby were never found.
Several Twitter users praised the engraving on the Sea King Helicopter as a fitting tribute to Dara’s memory. “It’s always nice for people to remember Dara, an Irish girl with an international reach,” one user said underneath Niamh’s post.
The Sea King Helicopter is owned by British search and rescue company HeliOperations. Plans for the tribute were made back in 2017 by the company’s CEO Capt Steve Gladston, who had worked alongside Dara over the course of her career.
Dara is survived by her family, including her son Fionn, who was just three years old at the time of her death. She achieved history in 2013 alongside Capt Carmel Kirby after the pair became the first all-female team to undergo a mission in the Irish Coast Guard’s helicopter service.
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