A former accountant, who suffered horrific injuries when a private aircraft he was a passenger in crash-landed on an airstrip in Connemara, has settled his injury claim for a plane accident.
Kevin Barry Jnr, from Clifden in County Galway was one of a group of businessmen who had taken a demonstration flight aboard a Cessna Caravan aircraft, and was returning from lunch in the Aran Islands, when the tragedy occurred in July 2007.
As the aircraft made its descent onto the airstrip in Connemara, it struck an outcrop, bounced back into the air and cart-wheeled as it hit the ground once again. The left wing of the aircraft was severed in the accident and the single engine also became detached.
The pilot – Matt Masterson from Terenure, County Dublin – and one other passenger were killed in the plane accident, and Kevin suffered multiple serious personal injuries including a fractured skull, fractured ribs and an injury to his hand.
During a four-day hearing at the High Court, Ms Justice Mary Irvine heard that it took more than two hours to release Kevin from the wreckage – during which time he was trapped beneath the body of the dead pilot and in constant fear that the aircraft´s engine was about to explode.
After recovering from his primary injuries, Kevin made an injury claim for a plane accident against the estate of the pilot and the organisers of the demonstration flight – Lancton Taverns Ltd of Dublin and its company director David Courtney.
In his claim for plane accident compensation, Kevin claimed that he had previously been a highly motivated and active businessman, but now suffers from claustrophobia, short-term memory loss and struggles to find words when speaking.
In addition to the general damages he sought in his injury claim for the plane accident, the court also heard that Kevin was claiming a further €1.7 million in special damages for past and future loss of earnings in relation to several investment opportunities.
However, before Ms Justice Mary Irvine was asked to assess how much general damages Kevin was entitled to, and whether she would allow the claim for special damages, she was informed that both parties had reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement in respect of Kevin´s injury claim for a plane accident.