The family of a Mexican pilot who safely brought a Gulfstream II jet to ground in an emergency landing at a racecourse in Mallow, Co Cork 40 years ago has returned to scatter his ashes there.
One of Captain Ruben Ocana's four daughters said they were fulfilling his wish to return.
Mariana Ocana said: "It is very important to us because we know our father always wanted to come back to Ireland. Unfortunately, he died before fulfilling his last wish but, in some way, we are bringing him back to Ireland today.
On 25 May 1983, the 15-seater jet, with a crew of four, was carrying four business people from New Jersey in the US to Munich in Germany.
They were due to re-fuel in Shannon, but it was fogbound.
Captain Ocana knew he did not have enough fuel to divert to Cork.
Instead, air traffic control directed him to Mallow, where he landed on the racecourse's home straight at around 8.15am.
Miraculously, there were no injuries and remarkably no damage to the jet either. The jet was valued at the time at £8 million.
"I will be out of here once the ground dries out," Captain Ocana told veteran correspondent with the then Cork Examiner, Ray Ryan.
But the plane's insurers, Lloyd's of London, had other ideas.
They insisted on the construction of a 1,000-metre runway at a cost of almost a quarter of a million pounds.
From the RTÉ Archives: Emergency Landing At Mallow Racecourse
And, while that was being done, Captain Ocana made the most of his celebrity status.
He stayed in Mallow's Central Hotel and made many friends. He even judged the Rakes of Mallow beauty competition.
After 39 days in Mallow, the bespoke airstrip at Mallow Racecourse was complete.
Captain Ocana and his crew fired the engines and took off safely, heading west, before doubling back for a low-altitude flypast, much to the delight of the 2,000 people who had blocked traffic on the main Mallow to Killarney road for several hours to witness the event.
Mariana Ocana said: "He was an experienced pilot. He never had an emergency landing before, or an event similar to this one before and what happened here 40 years ago changed his life and ours too, in some ways."
"He was always remembering Mallow. He had fond memories of Mallow and its people and the time he spent here. He was always very grateful and very thankful for all the hospitality and the empathy and the solidarity that the people showed to him.
"That is why we are here. We want to express how thankful we are for all you have done for our dad."
Captain Ocana subsequently returned to Mallow twice with his wife and family and expressed a desire to do so again prior to his death, aged 81, in 2009.
"You made him feel at home, even though he was 5,000 miles away," Marianna said when she re-visited Mallow in 2010.
"He felt so happy when he was here. All the people were friendly and kind. They are the memories he had in his mind until the last day of his life."
Kevin Owens is Managing Director of the Hibernian Hotel in Mallow and one of the organisers of this weekend's Ocana Fest.
He said the 40th anniversary of Captain Ocana's dramatic emergency landing had to be commemorated.
"It was an absolutely massive event for Mallow. It was a huge event which made worldwide news," Kevin Owens told RTÉ News as he welcomed members of the Ocana family to north Cork.
"The whole town took Captain Ocana to their hearts, the Irish people took him to their hearts and he always kept Mallow and the people of Mallow very close to his heart too.
"He wrote letters back to people who were good to him. A massive relationship was struck and built and kept going, and that deserves to be commemorated."
RTÉ Archives
Watch an 'Ireland's Eye’ report, by Pat Butler, broadcast on 25 May 1983
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