On April 29, 11 people died and two were missing after a helicopter crashed in the North Sea, according to rescue officials.
A CHC helicopter carrying 13 passengers and crew from a Statoil ASA-operated oil and gas field offshore Norway when it went down and crashed near Bergen on Norway’s west coast on Friday. There were 11 passengers and two crew members on board, including one British and one Italian, tweeted the rescue coordination center.
According to John Sjursoe, a press spokesman for the joint rescue center, 11 of the 13 passengers were found death but two are still missing. Morten Kronen, a spokesman for the Rescue Coordination Centre for Southern Norway, told Reuters that the helicopter is completely destroyed. Rescue services are working hard to find people alive but they fear the worst, said Kronen, who’s also the police operations leader.
“We have not yet found any survivors. We are still looking,” Kronen said. He added that is too soon to say what caused the accident.
The rotor blade of the helicopter was found on land but the hull was found under water. All 11 passengers were Statoil employees, while the two crew members worked for CHC, according to the reports. Eleven on board were Norwegians, the two remaining were British and Italian.
Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, described the accident as “horrible” on his Twitter account.
In Stavanger and Bergen, Statoil mobilized its emergency organization and they are cooperating with emergency services and other rescue resources, said a spokesman, Ola Anders Skauby.
A Eurocopter EC225LP helicopter
The Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority affirmed that the aircraft was a Eurocopter EC225LP operated by CHC Helicopter, which belongs to Firm Reserve, a U.S private equity firm. The firm said they are assessing the situation and are collaborating with the authorities in their investigation.
In a statement, The Norwegian aviation authority said that there had problems with the helicopter model in 2012, but the manufacturer made a modification since then and it was approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency.
In 1997 a helicopter its way to the Norne field crashed in the Norwegian Sea and 12 passengers died due the accident. The most recent tragedy in the industry occurred last December after one person was killed when a wave crashed into a rig contracted by Statoil.
Source: Bloomberg