BP has suspended flights of its Super Puma helicopters as an investigation gets underway into the crash on Wednesday evening of a helicopter of that type carrying 16 oil workers – a quarter of them Maltese.

The Maltese workers were Richard Gauci, Adrian Gomes, Emanuel Spiteri and Keith Spiteri. All are in good health.

The helicopter, which also carried a two-man crew, crashed into the North Sea close to an oil platform. In what has been dubbed as being Scotland’s Miracle on the Hudson, the chopper remained upright and all on board evacuated quickly and safely onto dinghies. The Miracle of the Hudson was the crash landing of an Airbus A320 in New York’s Hudson River a few weeks ago. It also satyed afloat and all passengers were saved.

The BP helicopter is now in the process of being lifted and transported to Aberdeen, 125 miles away. Its tail boom is missing but it is not clear whether it came off before the crash, or as a consequence of it.

Super Puma helicopters had an otherwise good safety record.

The air accident investigation is being conducted by 11 members of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

Workers on the BP oil platform where the helicopter was meant to land in poor weather saw the aircraft ditch and rescue vessels were quickly on the scene.

There was widespread praise for the training and equipment given to the workers – who had been wearing immersion suits with location beacons and had been trained to quickly take to the life rafts – which were equipped with satellite location equipment.

Questions have been raised however over whether the helicopter flight should have taken place – several flights were cancelled on that day because of the weather and this flight itself was delayed by the poor visibility.

See also:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090219/local/maltese-among-survivors-of-helicopter-crash