Helicopter ditches in North Sea (Ditching Aug23 2013) - Public Inquiry

peter_hutson said:
I believe there is a more intense version, where the pool is in darkness and the wave machine is switched on. I think though that is reserved for emergency service and pilot training.
Click to expand...

Survivex do it for us mortals.

Had the owner's son in Siberia bar trying to convince KaHn and I to switch to them at the tail end of last year :D

Jokester said:
I've no choice, Bond is my clients chopper contractor. Seems it's either a BP, Maersk or Wood Group flight based on the flights that were in the air.
Click to expand...

Unlucky.

It will be interesting to see how said Operators react to this.
 
Last edited:
"andy" said:
this is what i never 'get'

how does that choppers crash effect the other choppers ?
Click to expand...

I'd imagine it puts the scarers on the maintenance departments so they'll give everything a thorough going over on their helicopters to be on the safe side. I suppose it's possible that there may be a common defect amongst similar models so doesn't do any harm to check thoroughly.

EDIT: D'oh, beaten, shouldn't have typed that up, walked away, then come back. :p
 
"andy" said:
this is what i never 'get'

how does that choppers crash effect the other choppers ?
Click to expand...

Its all about liability, and liability boils down to what you can prove you know. If you know that the crash was caused by a particular part failing due to a manufacturing error, that you can demonstrate was not repeated on your other aircraft, you are safe if another one falls out of the sky with a similar fault. If you can't prove it, you are on the hook for the result.

With this aircraft, as of this moment, all they can prove that they know is - it isn't in the air anymore.
 
Could be, time will tell, given everyone got off i'd say the landing was quite controlled.

Either way the pilot should have a very good idea about the cause, be it reports of metal in the gearbox oil, rotor imbalance, loss of oil pressure, engine issues, the list is endless.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Could be, time will tell, given everyone got off i'd say the landing was quite controlled.

Either way the pilot should have a very good idea about the cause, be it reports of metal in the gearbox oil, rotor imbalance, loss of oil pressure, engine issues, the list is endless.
Click to expand...

True, but that would be the effect rather than the cause. Until you know WHY there was metal in the gearbox oil, or what happened to imbalance the rotors, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying in any way to imply fault by the pilot - he went from driving a flying machine to driving a boat and everyone survived, he obviously performed exceptionally. What I am saying is that if you were liable for the 10 millions dollar question "Can the same thing happen to any of our other birds?", then the information the pilots provided is not relevant - they may know what happened, but they can't know which part failed, or why.
 
i did my offshore survival certs in norfolk years ago

i rememebr my firefighting in montrose and doin my BOP stuff in aberdeen or was it norfolk

but the training now i would guess is a lot better than it was. good to hear they got out ok

we used to crew change in the gulf wearing shorts and a tshirt. only when i came back to the uk and worked in the north sea did we ever think about or need survival suits
we used to crew change in whirlwinds and bell 212 s and jet rangers the odd sikorsky s61 and the occasional puma i beleive.

we would hear about incidents occasionally but never had to ditch for real not i nice experience.
 
Says it was heading to the West Phoenix......that's one of the drilling rigs we're using at the moment West of Shetland :(. Not sure if it had any of our staff on or was contractor drillers - nothing was mentioned in the office this afternoon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom