AAIB bulletin - Helicopter landed on wrong offshore deck

[Undried Plum]

I like the idea of the red/green perimeter lights, but it could only work on the very tall helidecks of production platforms.

On a DSV the red or green lights would totally swamp the nav lights and would set up perfect conditions for a collision when the bridge watchkeepers of another vessel misunderstood the orientation of that vessel.

A Verey pistol would be impractical as its use would require a Hot Work Permit which has to be applied for at least 12 hours previously.

Expecting an HLO to scan the skies for an unexpected helicopter is also impractical. If he hasn't got other duties to perform between expected helicopter arrivals (most of them do), he's probably got his radio plugged into the charger and has got his feet up in the Reception area while he regales the girlie receptionists of his experiences on the flat bit of the blunt end of a Leander class frigate or a Type 42 destroyer. Anyway, his radio only works within the induction loop of the helideck.

In the bad old days of the 1970s we had lots and lots of mistaken landings. Beyond VOR/DME reception, the navaid was Decca Danac. Those charts were very expensive to produce and were only updated every six months. Exploration rigs are typically onsite for two or three months before completing a well and moving on to another site. Pipelay barges and jetbarges were constantly on the move.

Updating the charts manually was practically impossible as the charts straightened the hyperbolic LoPs into an orthogonal grid so that VOR radials looked like hyperbolic curves.

We once had a Beacopters 61 do a gear-up landing. That's a long story which I might write up here some rainy day.

[FD2]

I wonder if they tried it?

[Undried Plum]

They did have a legitimate excuse. They'd been doing a shift-change shuttle between a floatel and the adjacent platform. Dozens of flights over a distance of a coupla hundred metres, all with the gear down. It was extremely stormy weather, at night.

While they were on Piper's deck, with a windspeed of circa 65kts, they had just disgorged their pax and the male flight attendant was lifting the floorboard hatch cover ready to receive some baggage or cargo into the fwd/stbd hold, with both doors open, there was one hell of a veer and a gust which pegged the Radio Room anemometer at 100kts. The handling pilot felt the aircraft beginning to tip over on its side and the wheels were jumping from one square of the rope deck-net to another. He pulled the lever and got airborne immediately. The flight attendant shut the sliding door and then hauled up the airstair door. The a/c wisely made a beeline for ABZ.

The floatel then begged the 61 to come and take 8 guys to the beach as the barge was over its lifeboat limit. Quite apart from the obvious safety implications of being over that safety limit in a hurricane, it is an extremely serious criminal offence for a vessel to have more PoB than the legal maximum.

The 61 agreed and continued his climbout turn to descend back to the floatel. They'd retracted the gear, for the first time in an hour of one-minute flights and they forgot to check two-greens. The aircraft crunched down onto the deck and bounced into the air. It went around and then landed, with gear down, to inspect the damage.

There's a lot more to the story than I've said in this very brief synopsis. There was, at the time, an offshore-based Bell 212 which couldn't shut down its rotors in that wind and was clawing his way to Furryboots at minimum level against a 65kt headwind. One soul on board. It was a very frightened pilot of the 212 who put out a Mayday, saying that he had a MGB chiplight on.

Long story. I'll flesh out the details in a much longer post another day.

[Rwy in Sight]

Those pilots are heroes on a segment of aviation most people don't know but impacts their life by providing fuel for our daily lives

[FD2]

Posts crossed there UP. I was wondering if the Customs people enjoyed Boac's passengers' contribution to their breakfast table. I'd be interested to read about the 61/212 story some time.

[CharlieOneSix]

UP makes a very good argument against red/green deck lighting on the low decks of semisubs. However a way round that might be to have shielding on the lights so that they were only visible to a helicopter who was on an approach, say a 5 degree and above angle. Other surface vessels would not be able to see the lights directly. I'm probably being too simplistic and in any case as FD2 says if it costs money then the oil companies wouldn't be interested - unless of course they were compelled by the requirements of CAP 437.

The only time I've seen a Verey pistol used offshore was in the Beryl Field when a Bristow AS332 hovered upwind of the flare stack and the pistol was fired from the cabin into the gas plume to light it. If I recall correctly only a few pilots were authorised for that task.

FD2 might recall from his S61 BAH days when Decca Mk8 was the navaid for offshore ops - or maybe Danac had come in by his time?

Decca Navigator description

I only had a very limited experience of the Mk8 before we changed to Mk15 Danac but the Mk8 was a pig to use. I think I first saw Decca Mk8 as an ATC Cadet on a Varsity air experience flight out of Oakington. As UP says, straight lines were hyperbolic curves on the chart. On a trip from ABZ to near the East Shetland Basin you had to do a chart change half way there. That was when you found you had picked up the wrong chart spool in Ops. Either that or the paper tore as you tried to install it. Either way you were stuffed unless you had an emergency sellotape roll in your goon suit pocket or you knew how to read the decometers. BAH had a 'BAH only' Decometer Lane approach approved for an instrument approach into Sumburgh. In those days there was no ILS there, and the Decometer approach gave a lower Decision Height than either a NDB or VOR approach.

Re the S61 incident that UP relates - that is exactly the kind of routine I was referring to in my earlier post about being an Otis lift operator, very many up and down trips over 1 or 2 minute sectors. Fortunately the 214ST had a fixed undercarriage. I can really understand how that crew got caught out. We had one S61 Captain who also did co-pilot duties on the 214ST. On finals with the 214ST JG would always say "Gear down and welded", just so he never forgot on the S61 with its retractable undercarriage.

[FD2]

In BAH we were lucky to have an incredibly keen ex-RAF pilot, the late 'Decca Dave' Bailey in charge of the Decca charts. He frequently produced new ones and I think actually had an idea how the Mark 8 worked, unlike the regular shags like me who just cursed when that special, slightly brittle paper the charts were printed on tore, usually due to our rough or poor handling, and we had to put the broken roll in Dave's pigeon hole with an apology!

To give him his due he did produce some excellent charts and it made life a lot easier in some out of the way corners of the North Sea. The same or very similar version was fitted in RN ships when they were operating around the UK, but again I was never that sure I'd set the damned thing up correctly on the right chain and preferred more 'traditional' means of navigation. Does chain 6C ring a bell for the NNS or is that my wonky memory playing tricks?

[FD2]

That's what I mean by wonky memory - they had chains all over the world and 6C was for Bangladesh!

http://www.jproc.ca/hyperbolic/decca_chains.html

[Undried Plum]

I was very heavily involved in that gear-up incident.

'Twas I who implored the 61 to come and remove our 8 surplus bods. 'Twas I who took the 212's Mayday and vectored a Bristow 61 who was inbound from Beryl, across from the ADN 054 radial to the part of the 057 where Ced, the lone pilot of the 212, had made his Mayday and had not been heard from since.

'Twas I who could/should have been the last backstop to prevent the gear-up landing of that Beacopters 61. I have my mitigation to explain, though even now, more than 42 years later, I bitterly regret that I was unable to prevent the incident.

My report to Oxy/BAH/CAA/AAIB was sent by telex. It was 18 feet long!

I know for a fact that my, perhaps verbose (you know what I'm like ), report helped to save the flying careers of those two Beacopter pilots.

Ced, by the way, made it back to ABZ safeky.

He later became a bit famous when he really did have to ditch after a lightning strike in compeletely different circumstances.

[CharlieOneSix]

........ 6C was for Bangladesh!....

No, your memory is good. I found this by an internet search:

Over time, several more chains were established to cover the rest of the UK: 3B (North British), opened in June 1951; 2A (Northumbrian), opened in 1975; 1B (South West British), opened on 29 July 1952; 6C (North Scottish); 7D (Irish); and 8E Hebridean).

The Scotland chains are further down your chart.

[Undried Plum]

Yup. It was Chain 6C. I remember it well.

Wearing my geodesist hat, in totally different circumstances from the above tale, I had to go and check the co-ords of one of the stations as there had been questions about it.

I was seconded from Decca Survey Overseas Limited DSOL, known as Deezol. When Racal took over Decca they tried to change the name to RSOL, but soon changed their mind when they realised that it would be pronounced Arzehole.

[FD2]

rsol - great! Thanks guys.

[CharlieOneSix]

Decca employed their own helicopter pilot and had their own Bell 47G for development and demonstration purposes based at Biggin Hill. I met him once when I was working there - he went by the great name of Robin Hood. He chain smoked a pipe - even when flying! Not sure how he managed that in a 47!

[Undried Plum]

Yes, I remember him.

He flew the trials of a Trisponder-based system called Flagman. The idea was to replace the flagmen who directed crop-spraying 47s and who got lethally soused by nasty chemicals in the process.

[FD2]

Fags back in the day - yes, but the only time I saw someone smoking a pipe was a French Navy pilot who then alarmed me even more by banging the still burning tobacco out on the side of the cockpit of the HSS-1 - like a piston engine Wessex. Captain Hood must have been juggling a bit to keep his pipe going and fly at the same time!!

A pilot with a strong smoking habit at North Denes used to roll several very thin fags on the way out for the shuttles and then smoke them during the empty sectors back to the nodal platform in the morning and vice versa at night. They were so thin they only gave him about three or four puffs. By that time though it was very much out of favour as smoking itself died in popularity and I suspect is now a cause for dismissal.

If a fag was flicked out the left hand window in the Sea King at night it might hit the port sponson support and create a shower of sparks - keeping the observer on his toes as they flew past his window. C16 will remember the observer's revenge on annoying pilots in the Wessex - a sharp tug on the tail rotor control cables made hearts beat faster in the front.

Sorry about the thread drift.

[CharlieOneSix]

I think thread drifts lead to comments that otherwise wouldn't have their own thread. It's what makes this site more interesting IMHO.

Ced, by the way, made it back to ABZ safeky.

He later became a bit famous when he really did have to ditch after a lightning strike in compeletely different circumstances.

I never flew with Ced but he was good company in the crewroom. The lightning strike ditching was featured on a Discovery TV programme. His co-pilot that day was a member of Deeside Gliding Club. Subsequent to that remarkable ditching he had to take to his parachute when the elevator control on his glider became disconnected.

[Boac]

Full of admiration for the oil rig chopper guys. Keep the stories coming!

I was wondering if the Customs people enjoyed Boac's passengers' contribution to their breakfast table.

Never hung around to find out. Those who have experienced the ABZ Customs 'customer service attitude' (talking 1980's) will probably understand why it gave me great pleasure to donate that item.

[CharlieOneSix]

........C16 will remember the observer's revenge on annoying pilots in the Wessex - a sharp tug on the tail rotor control cables made hearts beat faster in the front......

And the other trick on a Wessex cross country flight - with feet off the pedals - when the guys down the back reached up and tied your goon suit shoelaces together behind the cyclic. Peals of laughter from them when you wanted to do a turn and found you couldn't get your feet to the pedal microswitches to disengage the heading hold.

[CharlieOneSix]

...The only time I've seen a Verey pistol used offshore was in the Beryl Field when a Bristow AS332 hovered upwind of the flare stack and the pistol was fired from the cabin into the gas plume to light it. If I recall correctly only a few pilots were authorised for that task......

If you haven't got a helicopter handy then give the Verey pistol to one of the girls on board..

One of the most ludicrous Police investigations was this one...from The Scotsman in 2018...

Police launch inquiry after gun used to relight North Sea oil flare.
Police are investigating after a gun was used to relight the flare on a North Sea platform.

[FD2]

Aye aye - fit's this ah hear aboot a gun bein' used tae light a flay're?

Some amazing stuff happened flying around the North Sea back in the day - hopefully in book form before too long. More info idc if it actually happens.

Boac - I think it takes a special sort of person to join HM Customs....an illegitimate one maybe