Oil rig chopper down at sea (March, 2009)

[rampking]

"The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says the main rotor blades of the Cougar helicopter that crashed March 12 killing 17 of the 18 people on board were still working on impact. The inflation collar failed to inflate when it hit the water. The Board reported today that their examination of the main gear box indicated no loss of main rotor drive, although the tail rotor gears had been severely damaged, causing the chopper to lose thrust. The board says an examination of the titanium oil filter attachment studs revealed fatigue cracking in the studs as well as evidence of thread damage. The investigation is continuing to determine specific causes and prevent similar accidents in the future. Meanwhile families of the victims have filed a lawsuit against a Sikorsky subsidiary, Keystone Helicopters, in Pennsylvania. A lawyer filed the complaint in Philadelphia to obtain answers about the design of the S-92A model made by Sikorsky.

A Cougar helicopter transporting rig workers on their way to Hibernia had to return to base after a front-line chip indicator sounded. The incident happened last evening, and the chopper landed at the base in St. John's without incident. Company operations manager Hank Williams says the passengers were briefed, and then flown out to the field this morning. He says standard protocol was applied, which means an immediate return to base. The chopper was about 90 nautical miles off the coast at the time of the warning. The aircraft was handed over to Cougar maintenance where it remains. "

This was quoted off www.vocm.com today, I find it quite interesting that the rotors were indeed working on impact. It was one of the first things I noticed when I seen it was that the rotors did not look like they were spinning still in very good shape, although I never did see the tail rotor. Does this change anything???

King

[Widow]

Here's the link to the full TSB release today: http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/medias-media/c ... 090618.asp

[Widow]

Former judge to assess offshore chopper risks after March crash that killed 17
By Sue Bailey (CP) – 6 hours ago

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The retired judge heading an inquiry into offshore helicopter safety wanted to know all he could about the Cougar chopper that ditched into the Atlantic last March, killing 17 of 18 people aboard.

Robert Wells, 76, underwent simulated crash training to qualify for flight to the Hibernia oil platform east of St. John's - on the very Sikorsky S-92A model that failed that devastating day.

It helped him prepare for more than six weeks of hearings that start Monday to assess whether offshore helicopter transport risks are as low as is "practicable."

What shocked Wells was how fast a chopper fills with water when it plunges into the sea.

"When the helicopter hits the water and turns over, it's almost instantaneously full of water," he said in an interview. "That surprised me."

Wells, wearing a bulky survival suit, was trained to count to 10 before knocking the seat-side window out with his fist.

"You had to learn how to breathe with an apparatus underwater," he said. "Then as soon as you knock out the window, you put your hand on the window sill - you're upside down and in the water completely - and of course you have to keep your head and pull yourself out through the window and float up to the surface."

Of the 18 souls aboard doomed Cougar Flight 491 last March 12, Robert Decker was the lone survivor. He escaped through a window and was plucked from the ocean in critical condition. He was released from hospital after several days in intensive care.

"There was no time for panic. There were no words spoken. There was no time for suffering," he later said in his only public statement.

Wells will hear from a long list of witnesses but it has not been confirmed if Decker will be on it. It includes families of workers killed in the crash, transport officials, offshore oil regulators and industry representatives. The inquiry will not deal with the cause of the crash, which is still under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board.

It has already announced that titanium mounting studs which attach an oil filter bowl to the main gearbox broke during flight. The two chopper pilots had reported a problem with the main gearbox oil pressure.

In the first phase of the inquiry, Wells is to make non-binding recommendations by March 31 to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The independent joint federal-provincial agency regulates offshore oil and gas activity.

The second phase allows the commissioner to make recommendations on the Transportation Safety Board's final report.

Wells, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, will specifically investigate: safety plan requirements for helicopter operators and the extent to which they're maintained; the contractual and legislative search and rescue obligations of chopper operators; and the role of the petroleum board and other regulators to uphold worker safety laws.

It's not up to Wells to lay any criminal or civil blame for the Cougar disaster, nor is he to examine the contentious debate over Department of National Defence search and rescue services.

"But that doesn't stop me from examining and making a recommendation on what I think is necessary," he stressed.

Repeated calls for Ottawa to station a 24-hour military search and rescue helicopter in St. John's have escalated since the Cougar tragedy and the sinking of the Sea Gypsy fishing vessel, which killed two men last month.

Federal government and military officials have steadfastly said that Gander, in central Newfoundland, is still the best base for such services.

"The weather conditions here in St. John's and the fog in particular are sometimes prohibitive for helicopters to take off," Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in an interview Friday after meeting with search and rescue, and Coast Guard specialists in St. John's.

"I'm told that the response times are actually not only within a two-hour window, but a one-hour window in most instances.

"I'm very, very appreciative of the fact that minutes seem like hours when you're adrift in the North Atlantic.

"But with the assets that we have, with Cougar Helicopters holding up their obligations vis-a-vis the offshore, we feel we're getting optimal coverage currently."

Sheldon Peddle, a union leader representing about 700 offshore oil workers, begs to differ. A royal commission into the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger drilling rig, killing all 84 workers on board, specifically recommended a search and rescue helicopter at the airport nearest to offshore operations: St. John's.

Peddle says the three remaining Cougar choppers contracted to supplement federal rescue services can't offer the same help as fully equipped military choppers.

They lack forward-looking radar and auto-hover features to help find and save people in the water - especially at night. Flights to the oil platforms about 300 kilometres from St. John's have been suspended after dark while the choppers are retrofitted, Peddle said. The work is not expected to be finished until at least next summer.

Two of his members have quit since March rather than fly back and forth.

Greg Duggan, a drilling platform worker on Hibernia, lost his younger brother Wade, 32, in the Cougar crash.

"I feel there should be a search-and-rescue helicopter located in St. John's and on standby 24-7," he said. "There's a lot of activity off the east coast of Newfoundland and I myself work offshore. And I know a lot of people are very worried about search and rescue being located in Gander. Adequate response time just isn't there."

[jeta1]

Follow the inquiry at http://www.oshsi.ca

[rotorfloat]

Crash survivor slams chopper suits, training

The sole survivor of a helicopter crash off the east coast of Newfoundland last spring has criticized the safety training helicopter passengers receive, the survival suits they wear when travelling offshore and the seating design of the helicopters.

Speaking for the first time since the March 12 crash of Cougar Flight 491 that killed 17 people, Robert Decker, 28, told his story in St. John's at an inquiry into offshore helicopter safety Thursday.

"I don't think that anyone will ever know why it is that I survived this disaster and the others did not," said Decker. "There is probably no good reason. Just luck. What I do know is that I came incredibly close to losing my life."

Decker gave a gripping account of how he escaped the sinking Sikorsky S-92A helicopter after it hit the ocean 55 kilometres southeast of St. John's.

He told the inquiry that he doesn't recall the moment of impact, but his first memory of the crash is of being trapped inside the already sinking helicopter.

"The helicopter was sinking quickly, port side down. It was instantly filled with water. It was kind of as it was sinking the same way it was dropping through the sky. The next thing I did was reach for my seatbelt and I pulled myself out through the window," said Decker.

"I didn't know how deep the helicopter was at that time. I didn't know what was happening. I had my hands above my head and I could look up and I could see it was getting brighter and brighter and I guess eventually my arms broke the surface."

Problems with training, equipment
Decker said he wanted to speak at the inquiry to help it find ways to make offshore work safer. He suggested there are some real problems.

An avid sailor and sailing instructor, Decker said the training that all people who work offshore must complete before they are allowed to travel offshore isn't adequate.

"As good as the training is, a couple of days of controlled emergency training in a pool not enough to allow anyone to develop the instinctive reaction to survive a crash like this," he told the inquiry.

Decker escaped from the body of the helicopter as it plummeted to the bottom of the ocean. He said that when he reached the surface he had problems with his survival suit.

"I couldn't get the gloves on and even in the training, in warm water when you have complete dexterity with your fingers, I think they're a little bit tricky to get on. And there is also a shield that you pull over from around the hood that kind of protects the spray from getting on your face and I wasn't able to access that either," Decker said.

Decker also said the seating design in the Sikorsky S-92A is helicopters flawed. He said his experience shows that window seats safer than the others.

"The chances of being able to escape from an overturned helicopter being on the inside seat would be next to impossible.… You would have to hold your breath and wait for the initial person who would be directly next to the window to get out and clear out of your way. Their feet are kicking.

"I just can't see how this person would ever stand a chance," said Decker.

But in a prepared statement that he read at the inquiry, Decker said safe helicopters are the most important aspect of offshore transportation safety.

"Training to escape from a helicopter is important. Having good survival suits is important and having good survival suits is important and having search and rescue capacity nearby is important. But all those things are what you need after there has been a crash into the ocean," said Decker.

"If we really want to make offshore helicopter travel safe, what we have to do is make sure that every helicopter doesn't crash. The best way to keep every worker safe is to keep every helicopter in the air where it belongs. Safety starts with the helicopter and I think everything else is secondary."

The offshore helicopter safety inquiry was established by the Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board after the crash of Cougar Flight 491 last March.

The CNLOPB regulates the province's offshore oil industry.

The inquiry led by commissioner Robert Wells, a retired Supreme Court Judge, is adjourned until Nov. 16.

[Widow]

Families Settle with Maker of Helicopter

Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, January 07, 2010

The lone survivor and the families of 17 people who died in a helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland last March have settled their lawsuit against the aircraft's manufacturer, the victims' lawyer confirmed yesterday. No details of the financial settlements will be released. The lawsuits were filed in Philadelphia in June against the Connecticut-based Sikorsky, Keystone Helicopters and its subsidiary United Technologies Corp. alleging there were obvious safety concerns with the aircraft. The Sikorsky S-92A helicopter plummeted to the ocean and sank east of Newfoundland on March 12, 2009. The crash killed 17 offshore oil workers and left one survivor, 28-year-old Robert Decker, pictured.

[2R]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-l ... alcomments

An inquiry that limits questions ?
How can they prevent another accident if they muzzle those searching for the truth ?

[Widow]

For those who work on Newfoundland's remote offshore oil patch, danger was always thought to be in the work itself. But, on the morning of March 12, 2009, the most dangerous place for a group of oil riggers to be was on a helicopter bringing them to work. With little warning, Cougar flight 491 plunged into the frigid Atlantic. Of the 18 on board, only one man survived. Now, one year to the day after that tragedy, a fifth estate investigation reveals new details about events leading up to the crash and tells a story of hope and hubris - the hope of ordinary working people trying to make a living, and the hubris of professionals who boasted that they had designed and built the safest helicopter in the world. Linden MacIntyre reports.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/discussion/2010 ... r_491.html

[Widow]

N.L. chopper's flaw known in 2008
Sikorsky crash killed 17 in March 2009

Last Updated: Friday, March 12, 2010 | 5:37 AM


CBC's The Fifth Estate has found that the maker of a helicopter that crashed near Newfoundland a year ago, killing 17 people, knew more than six months earlier about the gearbox problem that downed the chopper.

The CBC investigation also revealed that U.S. and Canadian aviation safety organizations knew about the Sikorsky helicopter's flaw in August 2008.

On March 12, 2009, Cougar Helicopters Flight 491 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean 55 kilometres southeast of St. John's. Both pilots and 15 passengers died, leaving one survivor: Robert Decker, 28.

The S-92 chopper, made by U.S.-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., was ferrying workers to offshore oil-production platforms hundreds of kilometres east of St. John's.

It crashed minutes after the pilots reported the helicopter was losing oil pressure.

It was later determined the crash happened after oil leaked from the chopper's main gearbox, an integral part of the system that turns the helicopter's main rotors.

"Sikorsky should have been paying attention to this," said Shawn Coyle, who used to work for Transport Canada as a helicopter test pilot and now works as a consultant to the industry. "Someone in Sikorsky's organization should have been watching for this sort of thing."

On March 20, just over a week after the crash, Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators said broken bolts, or studs, securing the oil filter mount to the main gearbox on the helicopter were suspect.

"We went public after we were told by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and by Sikorsky that they were planning on taking action," said the TSB's Mike Cunningham. "We wanted to make sure that all the operators, worldwide, of S-92s got that information in the quickest manner possible."

Less than two weeks after the crash, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration — the organization that had certified the Sikorsky S-92 as safe to fly — grounded all of the choppers and ordered their owners to change titanium studs to steel studs.

It may appear they reacted quickly, but The Fifth Estate's investigation questions that conclusion. The CBC investigation shows that during the summer of 2008, Sikorsky, TSB and the FAA were aware of the possibility of the titanium studs breaking.

On July 2, 2008, a Sikorsky S-92 chopper carrying Australian offshore oil industry workers narrowly avoided tragedy after two studs securing the oil-filter assembly to the main gearbox broke and the helicopter lost oil pressure. The pilots were close enough to land to bring the chopper down safely.

Claimed to be safest

The mechanical failure left some people in the helicopter transportation industry with questions about the S-92 — a helicopter Sikorsky advertised as the safest in the world.

The Australian helicopter was owned by CHC Helicopter Corp. of Vancouver. CHC asked Transportation Safety Board of Canada's West Coast manager, Bill Yearwood, to oversee an independent analysis of what happened to that chopper.

That crucial third-party analysis took place in Richmond, B.C., in the presence of the helicopter's owners and Sikorsky officials.

An Aug. 29, 2008, summary of that examination written by the TSB noted some troubling findings.

"There appears to be several unresolved issues with the oil system, aside from the fractured studs, on this particular aircraft. It seems likely that these issues are related to stud failures," the TSB found.

The TSB also noted that: "It is reported the military S-92s use steel studs to attach the filter bowl to the transmission."

FAA told in 2008

In late August of 2008, the TSB advised the FAA of its findings.

But it wasn't until five months later — on Jan. 28, 2009 — that Sikorsky issued an alert saying the titanium mounting studs should be replaced by steel studs on every helicopter within a year, or within 1,250 flight hours.

Two months after that, on March 23, 2009 — more than seven months after the Australian chopper failure — that the FAA grounded the S-92s and ordered the studs changed.

The Fifth Estate 's Linden MacIntyre asked Coyle about the time it took authorities and Sikorsky to respond to what they learned in August 2008.

"You tell me, is that a reasonable lapse of time?" he asked.

"Well, in hindsight, no," said Coyle.

Neither the FAA nor Transport Canada agreed to on-camera interviews requested by The Fifth Estate. Sikorsky also declined repeated requests for an on-camera interview.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-l ... e-311.html

[J31]

It is disappointing how poorly a known problem was handled by Sikorsky, TC and the FAA. Maybe 20/20 but most engineers could see the catastrophic implications of a large lubrication loss in the main gear box. Maybe they believed the run dry hype.

Why the use of titanium bolts when Sikorsky had experience with steel bolts holding the filter on in other machines?