"It looks like we'll be diggin' well into the night," commented a devastated Seamus O'Malley of the Dublin Garda. "Some of dem bodies are just skin and bone."
"We keep finding ashes," said one rescuer. A spokestypeperson for the Irish Government took time off from torturing tobacco pushers to explain that this was most likely due to the huge fireball that had engulfed the plane on impact.

When we raised the question of terrorism, Ireland's civil aviation minister, Ms Siobhan Guinness, assured us that the crash was in no way connected with the hijacking of a similar, two-seater Cessna from Ballybogorra aerodrome late last week by a short, American gentleman with a speech impediment.

The plane, owned by the Halliburton Airlines, disappeared from radar screens minutes after take-off from Crawford, Texas airport at 2.44 am Irish time on Saturday and crashed into the Bernard Shaw Memorial Cemetery on the outskirts of Dublin shortly before dawn this morning. Ms Guinness told Utterpants that the plane was heading for Fallujah in Iraq, but had apparently taken a wrong turn somewhere over the Atlantic — or possibly Texas. The pilot was listed on the flight plan as a Mr G Busch and his passenger as a Mr R Cheney. Neither reported any problem and the weather was normal with good visibility, official sources told us.
The crash coincides with intense US concern about possible terrorist attacks involving model aeroplanes and very large box kites, which has led to the closure of several large toy stores across the USA.

"We have half a body here, half a body dere, but we don't have any body in one piece anywhere," said a rescue worker, who spoke to us via satellite. Seamus O'Malley of the Dublin Garda explained: "What we have picked up so far is just lots of bones. The chances of finding complete bodies looks slim because of the force with which de plane hit de ground."

US Defense Secretary, Ronald Dumbsfeld, was unavailable for comment when we contacted his office owing to a prior engagement with a Ms B Spears, but an aid expressed his 'deepest shock' for the sad deaths of the pilot and passenger — or he might have said 'joy'. Halliburton Airlines is a Saudi Arabian charter airline company thought to be based in Kabul and owned by BinLiner Holdings Inc. The two-seater plane was regularly maintained by a crack ground crew of Jamaican sharecroppers and there was no sign of any mechanical fault before its last flight, the official Afghani news agency, Alljizz, might have told us if we hadn't heard it from a tall, bearded bloke with a kalashnikov first.

We asked Seamus O'Malley what the plane was doing in Irish air space.
"Well.." began the plucky policeman, tapping his enormous, red proboscis thoughtfully, "Da lads down the pub reckon it was heading for the Mosque on de other side of the Liffy, but I tink dat's bollocks. I mean — who ever heard of Americans worshippin' a heathen Pope?"
"Then you don't think it was a suicide mission?" we asked.
"Bejasus, no!" exclaimed the Connemarra copper. "Why would two Americans fly all dem tousands o' miles just to kill demselves?"

An eyewitness told our reporter that people heard a loud noise at the time of the crash but thought it was just some local lads burning another illegal smoker. "Dey torch so many of dem nicotine junkies now," commented one anonymous man with an unpronounceable Irish name covered in nicotine patches, "Dat we didn't tink anythink of it. I was well gob-smacked next mornin' to see all dem thousands of poor dead people scattered all over de place. Who would have taught you could get so many people in a little ting like dat? Ah, well, dat's Americans for you; dere little divils for pullin' de wool over your eyes!"

Comment on this story? Click the button to have your say.

© 2004 utterpants.co.uk