Air accident investigators were today trying to piece together why a light aircraft crashed on the east coast of Ireland, killing all four people on board.

The pilot, Sharif Booz, was flying from Gloucester to Co Kildare with his wife, Margaret, his 14-year-old younger son, Ayman, and his son’s friend, when they dropped below radar in Co Wicklow, around lunchtime on Saturday.

The wreckage of the aircraft was discovered yesterday after a massive search operation by rescuers had to be suspended for some hours because of atrocious weather conditions. The plane came down in a bog in a remote region in the west of the county.

Mr Booz, a property developer from Almondsbury near Bristol, is believed to have been an experienced pilot. A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said that Mr Booz was a father-of-two who flew regularly. Ayman's friend was said also to have been aged in his mid-teens.

Gardai said that family members arrived in Ireland from the UK yesterday afternoon.

The Piper PA-28 single engine plane was on its way from Gloucester to Kilrush airfield in Co Kildare when it went missing. Four bodies were recovered from the scene and post-mortem examinations will be carried out on the bodies at Naas General Hospital.

The plane itself was left where it came down, at Corriebracks, just south of Hollywood, and inspectors with the Irish government’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) were returning today to continue their probe into the tragedy.

While weather conditions over Ireland were unsettled on Saturday, investigators refused to be drawn on whether that was the cause of the accident, saying that it was too early to tell.

Jurgen Whyte, chief inspector of Air Accidents, said: “Obviously we’ll be looking at all aspects but we’ll be looking at the weather conditions in particular, obviously because I think everyone’s aware that the weather was quite bad.

“We’ll be interested to see the flight planning of the aircraft, the prevailing weather conditions at the time and also we’ll be examining the aircraft.”

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