Super Puma Aaib Report Released ...

[Terrorfex]

View the report here.

 

To summarise :

 

Pilot error, with supporting circumstances including failure of the GPWS to issue an audio alert at dangerously low altitude. Pilots believed they were landing on the platform when, in actual fact, they were landing directly onto the sea. The April Super Puma incident report (where all hands were lost) is expected shortly.

[spamspamspam]

It is crazy in this day and age... an age where cars can park themselves, men can repair telescopes miles above the earth, buildings can take up almost an entire mountain in the pursuit of crashing protons together and aeroplanes can get from London to Sydney almost with the touch of a button yet we cant devise a system for a helicopters to land on a platform that doesnt rely on some guy looking out a window and saying left a bit.

[Terrorfex]

It is crazy in this day and age... an age where cars can park themselves, men can repair telescopes miles above the earth, buildings can take up almost an entire mountain in the pursuit of crashing protons together and aeroplanes can get from London to Sydney almost with the touch of a button yet we cant devise a system for a helicopters to land on a platform that doesnt rely on some guy looking out a window and saying left a bit.

 

There are multiple systems that do just that, Spam. Obviously in this case, they didn't operate correctly but ultimately there should have been a guy looking out a window, saying left a bit. You've got to have situational awareness; for all the fancy 'lectronics and gadgets and buttons and levers, it's still a human sitting in the chair. If he's become so disorientated he thinks he's landing on a fifty foot plus platform when he's about to put it down in the drink, something's gone very badly wrong with him in addition to the GPWS and other navigational/landing aids.