North Sea Super Puma Crash: Lessons Learned

Then, earlier this year, the AAIB issued a bulletin in connection with the August 2013 crash in which it highlighted a safety concern relating to pre-flight safety briefings on the functionality of emergency equipment provided to them for UK North Sea offshore helicopter flights. This bulletin focused on emergency breathing systems – which, although not required by regulatory authorities, had been introduced in UK offshore helicopter operations as a voluntary industry standard – and on hybrid systems in particular. The AAIB recommended as a "safety action" that the pre-flight briefings include information to explain that the hybrid emergency breathing system contains its own air supply that is discharged automatically, making the system usable even if the wearer has not taken a breath before becoming submerged.

In February of this year, the Civil Aviation Authority announced a raft of helicopter safety measures that included a requirement that all passengers have better emergency breathing equipment to increase underwater survival time – unless the helicopter is equipped with side floats. The separate AAIB bulletin had made the point that in about 60 percent of all helicopter water impacts the helicopter inverted or sank, either immediately or after a short delay.

Following the CAA's action, safety and survival training company Survivex launched July 8 the first training course that focused on how to use an updated lifejacket and Category A emergency breathing system. This new system is an improvement on the existing system by being capable of being operated with one hand so that the mouthpiece can be deployed within 12 seconds. Survivex said that more than 100 offshore workers successfully completed the 90-minutes course on its first day.

Other measures announced by the CAA to improve helicopter safety included:

  • Prohibiting flights in the most severe sea conditions, so that the chance of a ditched helicopter capsizing is reduced and a rescue can be safety undertaken
  • Passengers will only be able to fly if they are seated next to an emergency window exit (unless helicopters are fitted with extra flotation devices or passengers are provided with better emergency breathing systems)

The CAA also said that there would be important changes to the way pilots are trained and checked, while the organization will take on the role of approving each offshore helideck to ensure strict safety standards are met.

It would be wrong for Rigzone to speculate about what exactly occurred in the August 2013 AS332-L2 helicopter crash before the ultimate findings of the official AAIB inquiry have been published, but the actions taken by the CAA and the industry itself suggest that lessons have been learned from the accident and appropriate safety measures adopted.


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