Helicopter down off Rio de Janeiro [Archive]

chevy 76

1st Aug 2004, 12:11

Hi, here goes a transation from Tribuna ,(Rio du Janeiro newspaper) about the helicopter crash....my excuses by some grammar errors, my Portuguese is not very good...

A person died in accident involving a S 76 helicopter at Petrobras service . The helicopter crashed yesterday ( July 22nd) during the morning in the Basin De Campos, in the North coast of the Rio’s State. Other five passengers continued disappeared. Five had been rescued alive, between them the pilot and the co-pilot. It was the second accident involving BHS’s helicopters servicing Petrobras in the Brazil, in the period of one year. Eleven people were on board of the helicopter S-76 type, PP-MYM, that crash at 8h20, 190 kilometres Northwest of Macaé, where the water depth is of about 370 meters. Six –(four employees and two members of the crew )- they had been rescued but the mechanic August Carlos Rodrigues, (45), Siemens company employee, did not resist and died on its way to the hospital. "I was able to leave the helicopter, because the pilot opened the emergency door, and I had luck of being able to save the girl (Luciana de Oliveira Hisses). I was 40 minutes drifting in the cold water until the rescue arrived, I was in panic ", declared Anderson Andrade Da Silva. Commander Adriano Godinho Bastos and the co-pilot Jose Ismael Hunter Júnior, from BHS, and the passengers Hiss, Luciana, from CIS Brazil, and Augustus Cesar Peixoto Gomes, da Petrobras, had been rescued and transported by helicopter to the base of Imbetida and taken from there in ambulance to the Hospital Is João Baptist,in the Centre of Macaé. The five are well and they do not run risk.
Missing people
Until the end of the afternoon, divers helped in the rescue of the missing people. A ship equipped with radars tried to locate the helicopter, which sank. Petrobras also made searches with the aid of equipment that allows visualizing the deep of the sea. The Navy and the Brazilian Air Force helped in the search. According to Petrobras, the missing persons are: Adilson Alves de Paula, Eleomar Rossi and Higor Snows Da Silva, , Ricardo Antonio Da Silva, of the Promontest, and Anidalmom Moraes Siqueira, of the BSM. The accident occurred more than one hour after the aircraft took off from the heliport of the Lighthouse of Sao Thomé, in Fields. The helicopter flew 40 minutes to the ship-platform the FPSO-Brazil and crashed about five minutes after taking off on its the way to the P-31 platform, in the Marlim field.
The general coordinator of the Petroleum worker’s federation (FUP), Antonio Carrara, said that he goes to discuss with Petrobras “the cause of the high number of accidents with helicopters" in the Basin De Campos. He said that the accident inquiry comission will be meeting today ,goes to look the possibility of the pilot to have done contact with the base, telling problems with the aircraft before the accident. "If he had communicated, it is recorded", he said. Carrara informed that the helicopter had passed for maintenance in day 19, and t that he had not been detected any problem.
Assistance Rodrigues, the Siemens offshore mechanic that it died, had two children. Siemens divulged a note lamenting the death. He was responsible for the equipment maintenance and came back of the platform where he was gave services when the accident occurred. He worked in the unit since January of 2002. The Petrobras informed that it is giving "to all the necessary assistance" to the familiar ones of the involved workers in the accident. In official note, the state company informed that "immediately was set in motion its contingency plan , involving the mobilization of boats, helicopters and specialists for support to the activities of emergency". Technician of the Department of Civil Aviation had been to the place to investigate the causes of the accident. In note, BHS, that has headquarters in São Paulo and is in the market since 11 years, informed that the helicopter "operated in strict conformity with the programs of inspection and maintenance of the manufacturer. In accordance with the company, all the documentation already was delivered to the competent authorities. The aircraft of the BHS have capacity for 12 passengers and two members of the crew and 3h20 endurance.
According to Infraero, Macaé heliport is as bigger of the country in number of landings and the takes-off, directed mainly toward offshore.