Since We're Airing Our Dirty Laundry.....
In the era of single pilot Bell 212 operations I was tasked to deliver a C-Box and a Bell Hoist to a satellite platform in the TOPCON field which was connected to the main platform. The other Bell 212 was stranded there and causing distress as we only had two on the operation. The hoist was too long so we used tie down straps to hold the sliding doors in place as they were ajar. Good thing we didn't need the floats........
In order to achieve this I flew to the main platform where everything was unloaded. Each item was then to be individually underslung to the satellite as there was no way they could be carried along the walkways.
The C-Box was delivered with no issues with our extremely able Chief Engineer hanging out of the port side of the aircraft calling out distances in addition to the mirror and the engineers on the satellite gesticulating.
The hoist was all but delivered when I was waved off by the engineer on the satellite as they were still sliding the C-box out of the way. So I initiated a climb and dutifully switched off the electric load release. As I leveled out at around 300' the Chief Engineer shouted "It's gone !". Of course I asked what had gone. He then shouted "The F**king hoist !". I looked into the mirror just in time to see the hoist enter the murky sea like a spear and knew there would be questions in the upper echelons. Luckily the Chief Engineer, while screaming epithets, had also checked the instrument panel light to ensure I had in fact switched off the load release.
When we arrived back at Warri the solids had already impacted the air conditioning and everyone except me was wearing goggles. In those days the "Tic-Tac", a very basic laptop connected to a modem and an HF radio, was the intra-operation communication medium. Apart from being summoned to Lagos immediately to explain the loss of what I had been told was the ONLY Bell Hoist in Bristow, there was an excellent spoof news report sent to all operations by the Chief Pilot of the Port Harcourt Shell operation where a tragic Bell Hoist drowning incident (not accident !) was causing anticipation of job losses.
I was very lucky having the Chief Engineer in the back; not only had he seen for himself that the load release light was extinguished, he showed total impartiality and integrity; he personally inspected the entire hook assembly (he had huge Bell experience), and found that it had been assembled incorrectly during it's previous overhaul. It would release undemanded if there was any lightening of the load, which my leveling off had caused.
I was exonerated but had to endure months of drowning/murder/tragedy wind-ups and stories at my expense. The engineer who carried out the incorrect assembly was caught red handed shredding the paperwork for it. He was "interviewed" but there were no other consequences for him.
There was a pipe laying barge in the TOPCON field at the time. The engineers had gotten friendly with the crew so they knocked up a replacement hoist out of scaffold poles and the job was completed almost on schedule. The Oceaneering divers on the Malaysian Moon also dragged the area for the hoist without success.
Subsequently a few replacement hoists arrived in Nigeria from those in storage in the blister hangar at Redhill; only hoist in Bristow my a**e !
NEO