North Sea Helicopter Safety – Step Change in Safety Event

The offshore industry safety initiative, Step Change in Safety, held a workforce engagement seminar on Helicopter Safety in Aberdeen in early March.

The presentations are all available to download (click on the presenter’s name below):

HSSG Update – Mark Abbey

This presentation on behalf of the Helicopter Safety Steering Group highlights that 80,000 people have been had dry training to use the Category A Compressed Air – Emergency Breathing System integrated with the Survitec Mk 50 Lifejacket.  Over 300,000 journeys have been made with the kit since it was introduced, with around 1 in a thousand resulting in a ‘snag’ being raised with the equipment.  Five improvement actions have been identified for the lifejacket / CA-EBS.  The presentation also discussed passenger sizing issued (previously discussed by Aerossurance last year).

CAP1145 Update – Rick Newson

This UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) presentation focused more on the flight operations than the wider issues discussed in the CAP1145 report published 20 February 2014 and the recent CAP1243, the Offshore Helicopter Review Progress Report.  It does seem to feature more on automation than CAP1145 did (a subject discussed at the RAeS last year).

HeliOffshore – Gretchen Haskins

HeliOffshore, formed last year, is taking an explicitly collaborative approach to improving helicopter safety, calling for alignment amongst stakeholders.  Aerossurance is a member of HeliOffshore.  HeliOffshore have 6 safety priority areas.  The presentation features draft material from the Flight Safety Foundation (FSF) Basic Aviation Risk Standards Offshore Helicopter Operations (BARSOHO), in the form of a bow-tie.  UPDATE 27 May 2015: BARSOHO is launched.  UPDATE 1 February 2017: BARSOHO Version 3, fully aligned with the HeliOffshore Safety Performance Model released in 2016, is now available.

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Airbus Safety Partnership – Andrew Dettl

Airbus Helicopters have 11,727 helicopters in service, the highest time being an AS332L at 42,000 flying hours (almost certainly the historically significant G-TIGE, the first helicopter to fly with the pioneering IHUMS and with TCAS2).  In total the company has 87 million flying hours of service experience (3.2 million in 2014).  In particular Dettl discussed five safety initiatives:

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Plus operator’s representatives covered background on three critical topics:

Helicopter Maintenance – Lee James

Pilot Training – Rob Dyas

Flight Operations – Tim Glasspool

Aerossurance has extensive helicopter safety, airworthiness, operations, survivability, safety analysis and contracting experience.  For practical aviation advice you can trust, contact us at: enquiries@aerossurance.com