Rebreather - UK LAP
I posted about this earlier in the thread and still don't know the answer. I am fully aware through my survival training, and the flight safety briefing (I think) that the rebreather also has an air cylinder which will discharge when the rebreather contacts water.
But my thoughts are - and I'm not sure - if you have not deployed the mouthpiece and popped the valve (which you do after breath in - before breath out to fill rebreather) the air from the cylinder will vent out the bypass into the water?
I also suspect through conversations offshore about rebreather, that a % of the workforce do not like them and would not necessarily deploy them - on a controlled ditching I think there would be more chance as they would tend to do what the leaders in the cabin do - but I am not convinced in an uncontrolled crash like this they would be deployed. Main thoughts would be escape from cabin. Also much harder to deploy inverted and under water.
Also I have always felt that on the 4 yearly refresher in the pool, we should experience the air cylinder discharging into the rebreather - this is not done due to the need to charge/recharge cylinders - and they are small and I imagine would be easily marked and weakened when recharging, and a lot of new cylinders would be required - I don't know what they cost.
I really want to know how this helicopter ended up in the water - it should never have. I hope the focus on this is not blurred by evacuation/escape.
HC - I agree with your scenarios about ditching - I would never dismiss your theory about the PF worrying about being questioned by passengers/companies and this stopped him taking the required corrective action. But it alarms me greatly. In my experience PAX are not complaining, but often would just like an explanation for any unexpected in flight event. Pilots should worry only about keeping the aircraft, themselves and pax safe.
The very good point made was that North Sea flying is mainly routine, and maybe pilots take time to recognise the danger of the situation before reacting, or maybe they were distracted by something else.
I saw a press report saying 3 of the 4 fatalities drowned - has the cause of death ever been confirmed?