The Super Puma was carrying two crew and 11 passengers from the North Sea Gullfaks B oil field, around 74 miles (120 kilometres) off the Norwegian coast when it crashed en route to Flesland Airport in Bergen on Friday.
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Norwegian rescue officials say the rescue operation after the helicopter crash near Bergen is over and all 13 people who were on board are presumed dead.
Statoil has “temporarily grounded all equivalent transport helicopters” in the wake of the fatal accident. I saw the helicopter falling into the sea.
Chris Andersen, an oil worker, told Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK: “I saw the rotor separate…”
The decision to put all commercial flights of the EC 225LP model Eurocopter Super Puma comes as the wreckage of the CHC Helicopter Service-owned, Statoil-operated chopper is lifted from the water off Bergen following Friday’s deadly accident.
Live footage showed leisure boats rushing toward the scene, where thick black smoke was billowing.
Formerly known as the Eurocopter EC225LP Super Puma, the aircraft is a long-range helicopter widely used in the oil and gas industry, as well as for VIP flights and search and rescue.
A helicopter carrying workers from an oil platform to the mainland crashed off the coast of Hordaland, Norway, on Friday, most likely killing 13 people, according to police.
In February 2014 the Civil Aviation Authority introduced a series of measures to improve the safety of North Sea helicopter operations.
In a statement, Airbus Helicopters expressed sympathy for the victims and said it is giving accident investigators and CHC its full support. “Then I saw a big explosion”, a local resident told local daily Bergensavisen.
“The accident involved a Norwegian helicopter and will therefore be investigated by the Norwegian authorities”.
Airbus announced during the night that it still had no information “that allows us to understand the causes of the accident that involved the aircraft’s rotor being detached, nor to make any links to events that have occurred previously”. “There have been challenges with this kind of helicopter model in 2012, when errors in the main gear box were identified… It is correct that there was an application for a so-called travel-time extension”, a senior legal adviser at the Civil Aviation Authority, Hege Aalstad, told the website of VG.
The flight was operated by CHC Helicopter, a helicopter-leasing company headquartered in Richmond, B.C.
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“We have mobilized our response team and our experts are working closely with Norwegian authorities, Airbus Helicopters and Statoil”.
