Licensing of HLO's
Every day there are a couple of thousand offshore landing's achieved throughout the world without incident or occurance, However there are days when a chain of events line up and errode our safety margins to a point where there was potential for a incident or even worse a accident.
My First officer and I had such a day recently when visiting the deck of a foreign rig for a crew change, the details are the subject of a ASR (Aviation Safety Report) and until concluded I will not disclose anything further. However, each oil company has it's own view on whats safe, and what is the best and safest way to preform a task. The North Sea has, I would contest probably the best safety record for offshore oil and gas production going, and when a Rig comes into this area of operation from a area with what I can only asume was one with far less awareness of safety and safety proceedures concerning aircraft, then what should have been a normal crew change had all the hallmarks for a accident.
I as commander of the aircraft I delegate certain responsibilities to other personel, people like engineers, refuelers, firefighting and loaders etc. all are checked and tested by a authority that maintains and improves standards in my case the UKCAA.
Therefore I would argue that when I land on a vessel where these proceedures are done on a very regular basis (i.e refueling/loading and firefighting) then shouldn't the HLO be licensed by the state that he/she operates in and that way ensure that the whole operation is done to the standard that can be checked and quantified against.
MaxNg