Helinaut,
You're so right! The lack of any credible SAR in Nigeria is a disgrace
. Exxon Mobil have a very limited day-only winching capability from Eket, NEMA has nothing credible at all. There was a plan for a dedicated, 24/7 full SAR, auto-hover S92 to be financed by most of the major IOCs but that fell through. I don't know exactly why, but rumours are finance and politics (Smell won't get involved in any joint venture unless they're the lead partner
). Whatever the reason, as Helinaut says, any flight ditching offshore within 30 minutes of sunset and any aircraft carrying out night training or a night emergency flight which ditches has no chance of airborne SAR until the next day (if Exxon Mobil will release one). The oil companies expect all the helicopter operators to provide night emergency standby, expect crews to be kept night current and know full well that there is no night SAR cover for this. It's a total disgrace and completely contrary to any Target Zero or any other safety system and just goes to show how low safety really is on their list of priorities
. If any of the operators had any cojones they'd refuse to rpovide any form of night emergency cover until such time as the oil companies agree to pay the true cost of providing it by paying for helicopter SAR cover and the training required for it.