Air screen for Pope

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 8

Air screen for Pope

NZPA-Reuter Dublin ■ I The Irish Air Force has i said it will shoot down any 1 unauthorised planes that fly into air corridors reserved : for Pope John Paul’s flights i around Ireland during his ; three-day visit which starts I today. "We’re prepared to fire on , any planes that do not move ( out when we make warning , signa®; Commandant John ; O'Brien, fighter wing com- j air base j near Dublin, said yesterday. Colonel Barney McMahon, his aide, ,4 'told reporters: : "Armed Machetti fighters 1

will check the routes taken j by the Pope's aircraft to m-k% sure °o lunatics are flying around. “We’d have very little option to open fire if, for instance, a plane was hijacked and being flown towards the Pope’s plane.” The tiny air force has never been involved in a dogfight or shot down a plane, but it has 16 combat aircraft highly capable of protecting the . Pope, according to-ColonelMcMahon. The Pontiff is scheduled to fly to Dublin Airport from Rome today in the Boeing

i;747 flagship of Aer Lingus, , the Irish Republic’s flag car- > tier. Four Irish Fouga Magister ■ fighters will escort the ■ jumbo jet, St Patrick, when 1 it enters Irish air space off s the County Wicklow coast south of Dublin. . The Polish Pope will ’ travel around Ireland by [ helicopter amid fears that , Protestant terrorists from ■ British-ruled Northern Ire- . land plan to attack him to avenge the assassination of Earl Mountbatten in Donegal ' Bay on August 27 by the Provisional Irish Republican “Army.