Eddie Haughey was on e of the richest men in Ireland with an estimated wealth of stg£500m.

He founded a veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturing business in Newry, County Down in 1968 and had been chairman of Norbrook Laboratories and Norbrook Holdings since 1980. The company employs 1,300 people worldwide, 1,000 of them in Northern Ireland.

He also ran an air travel business - Haughey Air - which owned a helicopter charter company.

It's not the first tragedy to hit the company. In 1996, three pilots were killed in a crash while en route from Belfast to his estate in County Down.

The 70-year-old owned Ballyedmond Castle in Rostrevor, County Down, Corby Castle in Cumbria, and 9, Belgrave Square in London, a six-storey townhouse purchased in 2006 for about stg£12m.

In the early nineties, he was appointed to the senate by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and later by Bertie Ahern before being made a life peer in the Lords in 2004. Lord Ballyedmond initially sat as an Ulster Unionist before switching to the Conservative Party.

The helicopter was on the way to Northern Ireland when the accident took place and Norfolk police have been in contact with the Police Service of Northern Ireland .

It was unclear whether fog, which had affected the area earlier yesterday, was a factor in the crash.

Roland Bronk, owner of The Swan House restaurant in Beccles, said it was "very foggy" in the area at the time of the crash.

Taxi driver Mark Murray, 22, from Beccles, said: "There is a large stately home nearby and you often see helicopters coming and going from there.

"When they have a game shoot the guests often all arrive in separate helicopters. We don't know if that is linked, but that's the only helicopter activity we see in this area."

The site is just 45 miles from Cley next the Sea, where four US airmen were killed in January when their Pave Hawk military helicopter came down in a marsh.

A spokesman for the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said it will be sending a team to investigate.