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NS Safety improvements?

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NS Safety improvements?

Old 1st Oct 2013, 16:57
  #81 (permalink)  
 
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Can I just add my tuppence worth about obese passengers? I try to eat as many stickies as I can on every sector I fly so our passengers don't have to, so I am stunned by the ingratitude they show by expanding to the size they are
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 16:58
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Yes SAS. I agree completely that improvements in design must be sought, but that takes years.

Our passengers have the immediate consideration of how to be transported in greatest safety in the flying equipment currently available. If I cause annoyance and upset, my apologies to those I'm offending.

My responsibilty as a pilot is to help our passengers in any way I can and point them towards the safest choices available.

And a relatively spacious cabin isn't necessarily the safest cabin. We badly need a helicopter which combines the best aspects of the S92 and the EC225.

In the meantime, I would also recommend to our respected passengers that they should press for a reduction in the number of passengers to be carried in all offshore helicopter types. That way lies an immediate gain in safety.

Last edited by Colibri49; 1st Oct 2013 at 17:12.
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 17:26
  #83 (permalink)  
 
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SASless

I agree that the argument is about exits, but it is also about training and ease of use of those exits. The 225 exits are large but training often fails as can be seen by the fact that the main cabin door, in real ditchings, doesn't seem to have been jettisoned but opened thus blocking 2 front windows.

The 225 has been involved in ditchings which have shown how the "real passenger" reacts rather than an ideal passenger.

The 92 has been fortunate and not has a real ditching in the NS so it is difficult to work out how "real passengers" will react.

In the fix wing world the manufacturer has to demonstrate an a/c evacuation using real pax - I believe they give a monetary reward to the first off the a/c to simulate the rush/panic to get off.

Do the helicopter manufacturers have to demonstrate a live evacuation using fully kitted passenger?

What size are the 92's windows - they do seem to be very small!

[IMG][/IMG]

Compared to a EC225

[IMG][/IMG]

I agree that offshore workers have got bigger, I certainly did while living offshore, but I had a big door to escape through!

HF
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 17:52
  #84 (permalink)  
 
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Perhaps some real life testing is warranted.

Pick some passenger lists at random to ensure a purely random selection of subjects and do some tests.
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 18:40
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Interesting read ...

Size of the matter ? offshore ergonomics prepares for an overhaul - Offshore Technology
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 19:00
  #86 (permalink)  
 
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ISTR the S92 windows are just about the same size as the small windows on an L2. I may be mixing my types though so happy to be corrected.
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 19:20
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While the exits are important, let it not distract everyone from the primary objective of stopping the helicopter ending up in the water in the first place.
The position of the door jettison handles on the pumas, well 225 anyway, needs to be addressed.

I always thought with a controlled ditching on a calm day, everyone would get out into the liferafts OK. Survival chances good.

Controlled ditching on a winters day when the helicopter turns over, chances not so good of getting out, but improved with rebreather if you have time to deploy it. Then in the water, if you find the liferaft and manage to get in, chances improved but rescue needs to get to you quickly and get you out of the water. The less fit and older you are your chances get less. I always thought if I ended up in this scenario 50-50 chances of survival.
If we can find something easier than rebreather we should take it.

If there had been size and weight restriction it would have motivated me to stay nearer the size I was 20 years ago.

HSSG FAQ's issued yesterday. Last question is about investigation and reviews. I hope if this goes well it will work.
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 22:47
  #88 (permalink)  
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I agree with TheLearner.

If we didn't ditch, we wouldn't need emergency exits eighter...

On a Boeing 737 I think there are 6-8 exits, and they carry up to 240-250 pax.

I agree that the design might be wrong, and the exits that are incorporated should be bigger.

But the real focus should be what we could improve to avoid incidents, and accidents.
Our business is actually very fool-proof on paper.
We fly scheduled flights on familiar routes to familiar destinations, with enough(?) time to plan, we fly multi-crew, we have autopilots, and we have SOP's that cover most of the situations we could end up in.
The only bit of hands-on-flying is during take-off and landing. It should be very safe.

We haven't had any accidents in a few years in Norway, but we sure have had incidents that could have ended bad.
Is it lack of crew coordination? Do we have too many tasks on the Pilot Monitoring during T/O and LDG?
Should we finish all checklist-items at a higher altitude, so both pilots are fully focused during critical stages? Do we follow SOP, or do we take shortcuts?
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 22:56
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....or of course bad cockpit design/layout....

Take the collective AP beep-trim on the S-92, that can contol what height Rad-Alt one is flying. It's next to the china-hat that controls the searchlight!
That's not exactly ideeal when approaching a rig at night, ecpecially as SOP says we are supposed to be coupled to Rad-Alt below 1000' (wich I think is smart at night).
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Old 1st Oct 2013, 23:38
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EASA NS stats

...27 accidents involving helicopters in the North Sea during the period 1990 to 2009, 6 accidents were fatal.

The average number of fatalities per
fatal accident is 10.3. The average accident rate in the North Sea for the period 1990–2009 was 0.91 accidents per million person flight hours.

The rate varies between 0.38 for Norway and 1.33 for the United Kingdom.

The average number of fatalities per accident was 2.3...

From EASA NPA 2013-10

http://easa.europa.eu/rulemaking/doc...%202013-10.pdf
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 18:07
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Let's keep this thread alive with different NS safety thoughts.

Q. As all of the N.S operators now have "stabilised" night visual approaches, with gates one must aim for, why, coming off the end of an ARA (rig radar as we used to call it), is it acceptable to be landing off 300' minima?

For instance, on a CAVOK night with 20 kts, I have to be established on finals at a mile out and not descending below 400' until I have good visual reference to the deck lights. On an ARA, after getting the platform visual at 3/4nm & 300', (poor vis & probably little wind to help), and already offset by 15°, I have a lot less time & reference to make a safe final approach & landing.

Does this seem to be inconsistent or am I missing something?

Comments please.
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 18:29
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Not you're not missing anything. Yes its an inconsistency, although IIRC its deck height + 200, min 300' for Bristow. Still, there is a big difference between deck height + 200' and deck ht + 50'.

On the other hand, onshore landing off an instrument approach is in general different from landing off a visual approach (eg instrument, arrive at 200' and maybe 110 kts, visual, turn finals at 500' and maybe 80 kts. So the concept of differences for visual and instrument are widely accepted and necessary. If you propose to raise the ARA minima to deck ht + 200 you are getting close to removing any point in an ARA for some of the higher decks.

But, with the different rules at night for en route descending, needing to do an ARA at night is fairly common even when the wx is not that bad. A good ops manual would point out that descent should only be made below deck ht +200 if so required to get below cloud. It would be stupid to arrive at deck ht + 50 when deck ht +200 would get you in comfortably, but I've seen plenty of people doing it.

Pretty sure BHL ops man doesn't make this point, and I doubt others do (but stand to be corrected).
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 19:22
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A good ops manual would point out that descent should only be made below deck ht +200 if so required to get below cloud.
What WX Minimums are you using for these approaches if you can go below Deck Height plus 200 feet to "get under cloud"?

Are we mixing VMC/IMC flying here?
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 20:13
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SAS Eh? Don't get the question. MDH for an ARA is 300' at night, or deck ht +50 if its higher. Admittedly there are not many decks that are >250' but there are some, and plenty >200'. These are IFR approaches!

VFR the gate is company-dependant I think, but recommended deck ht +200', min 300' for BHL.

My point that you quote relates to an ARA - IFR approach.

Last edited by HeliComparator; 2nd Oct 2013 at 20:14.
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 20:36
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[QUOTE]although IIRC its deck height + 200, min 300' for Bristow./QUOTE

No, its Deck height +50', minimum 300'. MDA is deck ht + 200' if RADALT u/s

My point was, if the training departments' think that the only way to be safe on a night visual approach is to be hitting all the "gates", why do these visual gates not matter in the final stages of landing from a night ARA? I'm aware of the differences between landing onshore visually or from an Instrument approach. However, there will be at least 500m vis at the bottom of an ILS not just the deck lights of a small platform with inky blackness all around it.

Deck height +200' seems reasonable for a non-precision approach when that is what you have to work with from an onshore precision approach. It gives you the space/time to make a safe transition to the visual part of landing.
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Old 2nd Oct 2013, 22:01
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[quote=902Jon;8078602]
although IIRC its deck height + 200, min 300' for Bristow./QUOTE

No, its Deck height +50', minimum 300'. MDA is deck ht + 200' if RADALT u/s

My point was, if the training departments' think that the only way to be safe on a night visual approach is to be hitting all the "gates", why do these visual gates not matter in the final stages of landing from a night ARA? I'm aware of the differences between landing onshore visually or from an Instrument approach. However, there will be at least 500m vis at the bottom of an ILS not just the deck lights of a small platform with inky blackness all around it.

Deck height +200' seems reasonable for a non-precision approach when that is what you have to work with from an onshore precision approach. It gives you the space/time to make a safe transition to the visual part of landing.
Its deck height + 200 (recommended) min 300 for a visual approach in BHL. Its deck height plus 50 min 300 for an ARA.

So in practice not a difference in min ht for a low deck, the difference is that for a high deck you retain a good site picture from visual, whereas from an ARA to minima the site picture is non-existant until the very last bit, just before nominal commital point.

However, ARAs to minima at night are fairly rare and as I mentioned before, this can be in their favour to some extent due to the "paying attention" factor.

I know I may be coming across as poo pooing various suggestions for perceived dangerous things, but as I have said before I don't think its these that will be the cause of the next accident. It will be something else that catches the crew in a low state of arousal because they didn't perceive it as being dangerous.

One of the most dangerous things about N Sea operations is the boring repetitiveness and predictability of it, and its the complacency this engenders that I think will be the cause of the next accident.

Bit like the Air France accident where they were bimbling along in yet another sleepy long haul cruise in the dead of night far above the ocean - consequently it took them a long time to grasp that they were in deep do-do.

Last edited by HeliComparator; 2nd Oct 2013 at 22:03.
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