Offshore helicopter safety questioned

The RMT transport union has criticised the possible re-introduction by Airbus of the Super Puma helicopter to transport offshore workers to oil and gas operations. The last fatal Super Puma incident in the UK sector claimed the lives of four offshore workers in 2013, and incidents involving the helicopter resulted in the deaths of 33 offshore workers and helicopter crew between 2009 and 2016, the union reported. Sixty-five people were also rescued from the North Sea over this period.

The union says mechanical flaws in the gearbox of the Super Pumas were found to be responsible for some of these accidents, but the regulatory response “has been far too weak”. Unions and MPs on the Transport Select Committee have called for a public inquiry into the helicopter, but the government has refused to hold one.

"The fact that the industry is even entertaining the re-introduction of the Super Puma is not only an insult to the memory of offshore workers and crew killed by this flawed machine, it shows how the highly profitable oil and gas industry continues to exert dangerous and unregulated commercial pressure on offshore helicopter operators,” said RMT general secretary Mick Lynch.