How long would have taken for an RAF Sea King to arrive at the scene of the aircraft as compared to the time the Jig Saw aircraft arrived?
If you go bobbin in the oggin you will have to wait a bit for help to arrive no matter who it is that turns up first.
Now grant you....the transient time for a rescue boat to make its way 500-1000 meters away from a rig should not be all that long one would think....assuming the boat was on the rig to begin with.
Where were the assets located when this thing kicked off that night?
Jigsaw was conceived during the last round of cost cutting in the N.Sea. It was intended to replace all of BP's platform and rig staqndby vessels with a helicopter only rescue facility. The thinking was that 3 choppers would be sigificantly cheaper than 20 odd vessels and their crews.
After a fair bit(!) of pushback this was enhanced with 3 supply vessels, each of which carries 2 ARRC (very large RIBS - with a cabin etc).
So it is likely that the ARRC which arrived at ETAP after the ditching had made 'best speed' from where ever it had been launched (they spend most of their time in the davits on the supply vessels).
The supply vessels positions and routing as 'optimised' to maintain the ARRC capability.
Having been involved in some Jigsaw assessment the expectation is you will wait for 2 hours before an 'asset' appears. The original helicopter trials resulted in goos recovery times - how well that is replicated with the same(?) crews involved in regular routings - no idea.....
My understanding of the Jigsaw required performance was recovery of a full helicopter crew within 2 hours. That was what lead to the use of 'wrist watch' PLBs - you could n't meet the requirement if people had drifted apart.
Of course that is a fair bit longer than the time a platform dedicated standby vessel with 2 FRCs would manage but ......
as I recall they changed from Monthly to quarterly which meant that you could get all your quarters stats done early and then sit back if you wanted.
Also as I remember many flights that I served on were producing great shortfalls in training due flying hour cuts and lack of serviceability. I also remember being on a job and the Captain was doing dummy decks on the fishing boat as he was short of night decks for the period.
Don't pontificate about the amazing RAF training system without producing the dark side of it as well.
Is it just me or does it sound kind of daft that in a potentialy extreme situation you're expected to remember to pull up the aerial in a state of the art piece of emergency equipment
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