From St John's Telegram....
The Canadian Press
Investigators have found a broken mounting stud on the main gearbox filter bowl of a helicopter that crashed in the North Atlantic last week, a part that was the subject of a service bulletin issued in January by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States will issue an emergency airworthiness directive stipulating that all operators of the Sikorsky S-92A helicopter must install improved steel mounting studs, replacing titanium studs, before the choppers fly again.
But a spokeswoman for the FAA said Friday it was still reviewing what the TSB found.
“We are considering an action to take, but we certainly haven’t issued anything yet and I don’t think we’ve determined when and exactly what we’re going to issue yet,” Laura Brown said from Washington, D.C.
“It’s just a little bit ahead of where we are on this ... they (TSB) made it sound like a fait accompli and it’s not yet.”
Sikorsky issued a service bulletin on Jan. 28 indicating the studs should be replaced and that the modification had to be accomplished within the next 1,250 flight hours or within a year of the bulletin being issued.
Seventeen people died on board Cougar Flight 491 when the chopper crashed into Atlantic Ocean on March 12 as it ferried workers to two offshore oil platforms.
The lone survivor, 27-year-old Robert Decker, has been recovering in a St. John’s hospital from lung injuries and fractures since the crash, about 65 kilometres southeast of St. John’s.
Investigators have said preliminary indications suggest the helicopter slammed into the North Atlantic nose down. The fuselage has been recovered from the ocean floor and is being stored at an airport hangar in St. John’s.
An online Transport Canada database says the helicopter “declared mayday due to a main gearbox oil pressure problem” before the crash. The main gearbox comprises the link between the engines and the transmission.
Meanwhile, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board says it does not believe there are any safety issues with survival suits used by workers while they are being transported in helicopters.
Premier Danny Williams has said he wants regulatory authorities to examine whether it was time to upgrade the standards for the survival suits.
The provincial government says members of the Canadian General Standards Board have questioned if the standard written in 1999 for the 2007 model suit is deficient.
The province wrote this week to the Canadian General Standards Board and the offshore petroleum board — which regulate the suits — asking if the standard for them should be reviewed.
The petroleum board says it has agreed to help fund a project to revise the standard and it has asked the TSB, the RCMP and the Medical Examiner’s Office to advise if their investigations reveal any safety problems with the suits