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Helicopter ditched in the North Sea


framheim

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Apparently it was going to one of the BP platforms (not that, that narrows it down).

Glad everyone is okay :)

It was next to the BP-operated ETAP installation in the Central North Sea which ties in production from the Mungo, Monan, Marnock and Machar fields (all BP) and Heron, Egret and Skua fields (all Shell).

Think most of the people were rescued by a lifeboat from the platform. Very close call.....if the weather had been bad, the chopper would probably have capsized in the waves. Lucky.

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It must be worse crashing/ditching in a chopper, due to the lack of a fixed wing to glide in on, much less control. Good to see they all made it, the RGIT training must be doing its job.

It's actually safer ditching in a helicopter. The pilots use autorotation to make a controlled landing. This is where they turn into the wind and tilt the blades and use the wind to make the landing. It's very effective. At the end of the day there's been shit loads of helicopter ditchings where everyone survived. Very few with airplanes though.

As for the RGIT course. You realise these guys turn up for these courses stinking of drink, pay no attention at all and complain cos they have to do the course every 4 years. Which is nowhere near enough if you ask me. I'm an offshore survival instructor myself and I have to say sometimes it's like talking to a brick wall. The reason they all made it into the raft was probably down to the pilots.

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according to this BBC NEWS | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Helicopter survivors back in port, it was missing its tail.

whats the bets that, as rig choppers often circle the platform before landing - and more likely in this case given it was low-level fog - that it clipped the rig? it'd have to be something pretty wild to make its tail fall off.

unless it fell off AFTER it ditched, of course.

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