Flying at Night
 

I started a thread about 3 years ago, discussing the perceived increased dangers of flying at night and did other forum users consider those risks to be acceptable for revenue passenger flights offshore. I would say that the general opinion was 'Yes' if done correctly, and with a well trained crew, night flying was no different to flying by day, just an extra level of care to be taken.

As I say, 3 years later and we seem to be having a spate of offshore accidents, all of which (and I'm afraid I don't have any statistics on front of me to back this up) seem to have an night time element. Within a year of my original discussion we had the tragic Morcombe Bay crash, then the Jigsaw SAR machine ditched in Den Helder. I believe there was a mysterious ditching in Nigeria with the loss of those on board, then recently we have had Abu Dahbi (OK, some well recognised problems there) and the Dubai 212 incident, both in the last month or so.

None of these accident reports have so far been released so I know I'm going to get jumped on, but Morcombe Bay looks like a good, competent crew losing visual references at night. Jigsaw has not been fully explained but I certainly heard that a few fingers were being unfairly pointed at the crew quite early on, and I wonder if it being night time added an element of confusion and was a factor in their decision to ditch - Obviously not many of us would make a conscious decision to ditch at night, so I've no doubt that the crew felt they had a real problem and had little choice. The two Middle East accidents , one looks like an inexperienced pilot and the other is so far without explanation but if there is any early hypothesis, it would be that the aircraft drifted backwards and clipped its tail rotor on a crane - Yes, hypothesis and assumption I know.

Couple all of these with the high profile onshore accidents. The Russian Oil Exec down in Bournemouth, Mathew Harding (OK, both quite a few years ago now), Philip Carter and family last year - All of which were headline news, all at night, with the aircraft seemingly perfectly serviceable. The last report not officially released yet. I know there is a thread running about Medevac operations in the States at night after the S-76 crash last month.

No doubt, someone will blow my argument away with statistics, but I measure these against a backdrop of other accidents and I really don't know of many accidents by day. Yes onshore, Colin McRae's terrible accident made headline news and is unexplained. Offshore, I know of a couple of fatal accidents at night going back, but I can't really think of many by day at all, and if you think of incidents like the Bristow Helicopter that got struck by lightning and made a successful autorotative ditching, the odds of that being so successful by night are practically zero.

I wish I had some accurate statistics to back up my argument here, but it seems to me that night flying accounts for less than 5% of annual flying hours, but at that same time seems to play a large part in over 70% of offshore accidents. Surely we can't keep pretending that we are offering our clients and passengers the same level of safety by night that they get during the day ???

Certainly no expert on the topic, but as regarding flying passengers at night, I guess my first question would have to be... why? What competitive advantage is to be gained? I guess in the N. Sea it may be because the daytime is so very short in the winter.
There are a lot of factors which probably would weigh the accident statistics, whatever those happen to be. A couple off the top of my head include:
1) Proficiency. Since, as you point out, we don't fly that much at night, whether we like it or not, we're not that good at it, at least not when compared to day abilities. When instructing regularly at night back in a former life and flying a substantial percentage of my hours after dark, my proficiency level was quite high, but I was never under the illusion that there were not things out there ready to bite if it all went pear-shaped. This argument has two sides, really. Since, as you point out, we don't fly that much at night, we're probably not that proficient. However, if we did it more, we'd probably become more so. Current percentages would probably skew the statistics toward a higher accident rate and higher ones would probably move the rate lower, but again the operative question is why do you want to do it in the first place?
2) Fatigue, Circadian rhythms, and Reverse Cycle Operations. See FedEx. They have an entirely different crewing model than an operator who mostly flies during the day. This issue almost nipped FedEx in the bud before it ever started... nobody would insure them with a standard airline crewing model.
3) Emergencies. While the crew may be capable of ditching the machine day or night, the elephant in the room is what about the pax? The after-landing part of the ditching is probably going to be messy.
4) For what little it may be worth, the U.S. Navy prohibits overwater passenger transport flights in helicopters at night.

Special 25,

The statistics that I have seen indicate that the accident rate for offshore flying at night is about 5 times greater than that during the day, so it makes sense to avoid night passenger transport whenever possible. That said, this is likely to be very difficult to achieve during the winter at high latitudes.

I suggest that it is inappropriate to make a direct comparison with fixed wing operations, as there are fewer variables (typically instrument approaches to a well-lit runway) than in offshore rotary wing flights. I believe that good training and SOPs can be very effective in reducing the risk, but not enough to equate with day flying.

In response to the above, yes experience does count for a lot. I seem to remember that one of the oil companies insisted that we carry out 3 take-offs and landings at night every 90 days, until we pointed out that just couldn't be done from April through September in Scotland, and they backed down !! Crews used to shuttle in the Brent many years ago and found they became far more confident and proficient at night flying - Still that 1st flight after 2 weeks off or the first week when the nights came in in October were still a bit of a shock !!

I agree that high latitudes do present a problem, but not a huge one. Even at the very worst part of winter, there is daylight from about 08:00 to 16:00, slightly less way up north in the Shetlands (if I remember rightly, its about 08:30 to 15:30) and is only this bad for about 3 weeks. I've always felt that flying at night is fine, it is the deck operations, shuttling etc that pose the greatest risk. Imposing a curfew on night decks still provides that additional 30 minutes (minimum) either side of night to allow the aircraft to take off at night and arrive at dawn, or depart the deck at dusk and arrive back at the airport at night. So, even in those shortest days in December, there are at least 8 good flying hours to get the work done - Yes, you miss probably a whole rotation in the afternoon, but this is public transport we're talking about, you don't need those flights - For 2 months in the winter, you could easily put on more flights at the weekend and I think safety would be improved.

Interesting to note the US Navy do not allow pax flights at night over water. I worked in Africa for a while where a number of oil companies there seemed to have recognised the risk and will not allow helicopter flights at night, whilst we here in the UK don't seem to have made the connection. Perhaps it is because at least 2 of the helicopter operators (certainly historically and I assume still) offer cheaper slots later in the day.

It's all about to become old hat, well in 2016 anyway.
That is when the helicopter accidents are going to be reduced by 80%.

This is according to some an article in our latest Flight Safety digest. it's a dialouge of motherhood statements, mouthed by some procative flight, er, international helicopter saftey team to be precise.

There's a whole new set of acromyns to feast on, JHSIT, JHSAT and IHST to start with. Gees i thought that I was reading an article on global warming there for a while. It remeinds me of one fruitloop prime minister we had out here, who once said that No child will live in Povrty by sometime before now.????????

Night flying (outside of flying over built up areas with lights) has to be considered to be instrument flying.
There is no way to orient the helicopter's attitude, height or position with respect to references on the ground.
The problem then becomes comparing instrument flying as we've come to know it with helicopter instrument flying. In most instrument flying, the purpose is to maneuver yourself to a position where you can transition to visual references to land, and the landing is going to be to a well defined piece of turf, typically a lit runway.
Once we realize that, we'll think more carefully about helicopter flying at night, especially to places like oil rigs in the middle of nowhere with a confusion of lights, most of which have little to do with the helicopter.
As for the other places where there have been problems with flying at night - just consider a fixed wing airplane in the same situation and consider the differences.
Sorry for the general nature of the discussion, but it would take too much room to discuss each accident (and I don't have all the details either).

Love this one....every year I still can't believe we fly to rigs at night!!!:ugh:
I am curious that if they found oil/gas today and not 30+ years ago, would the CAA authorize night offshore flying nowdays with everything we know/risk assessment etc??
Flying a S76 with it's limited visibility makes landing on rigs difficult, add in the fact that the southern North sea NUI's are very small,limited lighting, very low to the ocean, no wind, S76 power margin and hover OGE capability when heavy: NIL.... then throw in poor vis at night and hey presto:{ (what the hell are we doing here)!!! Chances for pilot error with all the above factors thrown in, well, you know the answer to that....and the outcome...Are the CAA asleep when it comes to regulating the N.Sea???? How many Morecombe Bays do they need(I know the OFFICIAL report isn't out yet but I think we all know what happened, may those people rest in peace).
As some above said, why can't we fly during daylight and the workers just have to have slightly shorter days??:confused: Why can't we as pilots organize against this? We know whats best when it comes to flying and how difficult it can be.
Fly safe everyone.
PH.

Mmmmm ....

"Hear Hear" absolutely agree!

:D

I don't recall it that way: we were mostly a bunch of ex RN types, and didn't have the good sense to be concerned :p Mid winter shuttles when there was 70 hours in the logbook for the fortnight, and not a day entry among them, were nearly all inter rig/platform with less than a few hundred yards transit. You led back into night flying after summer, but there was plenty of spare light around the platforms to help keep good orientation. Lots of landings per hour, plenty of opportunity to maintain currency and proficiency :ok:

I understand the 'risk assessment' attitude has changed over the years, but do the requirements of operating in the northern NS with only 7 hours of daylight mid winter not call for a higher standard of currency training, rather than the apparent call to mitigate risk by banning altogether?

John, I see what you're saying, and agree that times just seemed to be different back then - But don't forget, there was an accident during that time, where a 212 flew into the water when the viz came down. Regulations just weren't that important, and the rule book was written as we went along.

Now safety is paramount, we are 'Public Air Transport' and that in turn denotes a certain high standard. It isn't a question of whether we can improve the training, there just aren't enough night decks available for crews to be current enough to be safe and it isn't like the shuttling on the Brent where, as you say, you could do hundreds of night deck landings in a 2 week period.

The questions are, is it safe enough to fly at night, and secondly, do we actually need to take those risks, or can the passenger transports be accomplished in a safer manner - ie. during daylight hours.

The old risk-management model I once taught and had a hand in developing back in the old (but not too old) days had five ways by which you could deal with risk (it was SAR mostly, but you can come up with other means of mitigation in other type operations).
Avoid
Spread Out
Transfer
Accept
Reduce

Handily, the acronym is ASTAR... I wanted RASTA, but the powers-that-be had no sense of fun at all and I was dealt a crushing defeat.

My organization's prior risk-management model was somewhat simpler...
Accept

John... sounds a lot like how you came up!:eek:

I often wonder what ever happened to Richard Walker's Firefly approach lighting system - seemed like a good idea over 10 years ago.
For those who don't know what it was - a VASIS like system that was adjustable for azimuth and elevation (using a radio code) that would give you the flashing green (high) green (on appropriate approach angle), red (slightly below) and flashing red (too low), just like a runway VASIS / PAPI.

I agree with Shawn, you have to accept the fact that it's all instrument flying at night offshore, from hover to skids down. It can be done, and is being done, but it's not nearly as safe as daylight flying. I've had SICs try to fly into the water on downwind to an isolated rig, and I've had them unable to complete an approach to landing, even after several tries. The approach and landing are as demanding as anything I've ever done. I enjoyed the challenge when I was doing it, but I was very careful during every flight, right up to engine shutdown. As to why, there is one reason, and it's the standard one. Money. Money drives everything.

Special25,

Interesting question pertaining to night flight and the increased accident rate....exactly the debate American helicopter EMS operators are having....or having thrust upon them by the media, insurance companies, and the FAA.

Flying in the dark over unlighted areas is more hazardous than doing the same thing in the day light...that is no surprise.

The Brent may have had plenty of lights...but the Ninian when it was being built certainly did not. Shuttling about that place in the Winter was a real treat.

But...as John states....with exposure....one gains a certain level of comfort and it does not seem as difficult as when called upon to do the odd night flight.

The thought of a forced uncontrolled night ditching (read crash)....has got to be the worst experience we face....throw in cold water, total darkness, rough seas....and the old paycheck looks mighty skimpy sometimes.

I agree that flying approaches to structures, rigs and vessels off-shore at night is considerably more harrowing- and it is definitely not a piece of cake in the S-76. But night flying in the USA in the GOM is generally limited to patient transport and cargo (at least with my company)- we rarely ever transport personnel off-shore at night.

The SAR factor has always bothered me as well, especially when going out deep.

I do not see a valid reason why personnel need to be moved at night. Seems ridiculous to me.

On the other hand, if we had great instrument guidance to a 5' hover (equivalent to a FW doing a Category II ILS) that might reduce the accident rate.
I remember doing Differential GPS approaches in an S-76 in 1998 to a 50' hover. Where are these now???

So there seems to be general agreement, that flying at night is more difficult and therefore riskier than flying by day, and this would presumably account for the considerably higher accident rate that we seem to have for flights in the hours of darkness.

As above, I have always considered night flights as instrument approaches and you can usually get in pretty close to a rig as a 'numbers exercise' and then hopefully it is a case of looking up when you have a fair amount of visual reference with a well trimmed aircraft. Still not easy though, prone to error, making that switch from IFR to VFR, and I pity the poor guys in the S-76. I remember in the late 70's we had single pilot at night in the S-76, trying to do cross-deck landings with the nose 10' up in the air !! I never did that and was quite happy not to have done, but at that time, there was a general shrugging of shoulders and acceptance of 'well, thats what we do'. It took a while for enough grumblings to change the situation and common sense to prevail.

As with this. Anyone who shuts down offshore now is made clearly aware of the safety culture and how safety is now coming first in everything we are doing in this industry. I'm pretty confident that the Oil management that call up these flights have no real concept of the difference between daylight and night flying, they assume it is just a bus service and we as helicopter operators give them that confidence that you can have a helicopter shuttle any time of day - "we'll even make it cheaper for you at night" !! Sadly, when we had this thread a couple of years ago we said that there is going to be an inevitable accident doing this, and then sure enough, within 15 months there was. But still very few questions were asked, no questioning why a good, well trained crew could find an approach so difficult that 9 people lost there lives, or asking, if this had been daylight would the accident have happened ?? I'll have to bite my lip slightly as I am aware we still don't have the full report even after 2 years.

It seems to me that as helicopter operators we used to carry out about 3 rotations with everything back in the hanger by 4pm, before we sold these later slots at a knocked down price. I accept that these later flights provide for a more efficient use of aircraft, but at the same time ......

You now have aircraft routinely flying at night from Sept to April
There is less time for engineers to inspect aircraft
There is considerably less availability of aircraft for training
We are bringing passengers back at 21:30 or later which obviously disrupts their onward travel and time off.

There seem to be many downsides, it clearly isn't as safe as we would like our service to be and as far as positives go, there seems to be just one - As someone said above - Money, Money, Money

Just an aside,

In the RN we were only allowed to transfer passengers at night, over water if they had completed dunker training for underwater escape. Fairly sensible approach considering the only people to get out of the Scilliy Islands S61 were dunker trained.

As to rig approaches at night then I, personally, don't see the problem. As long as the flight is well briefed and one of the pilots is experienced there is no difference in a rig approach than to, say, a tricky confined area landing or a night deck landing.

Experience is the key here, as the airlines soak up the experienced pilots due to better T&C's (hard to imagine but alas true, me included), better working hours and a more stable roster then the guys/gals left flying the line will suffer from the loss of experienced pilots. With the current down turn in the aviation industry it will be interesting to see if people will move or 'ride it out' with their current employer.

W2P

(2000+ deck and rig landings :} )

This promotes a very good debate on the safety of operating at night, and I have to agree in general with most of the points that have been made. Whilst over the years many good steps have been made in the area of flight safety by operators, especially in the North Sea, night flying is not one of them. This is an area that must be addressed to the customer though, as they are the driving force behind the scheduling, and if they do not understand the risks, they should be educated. A good example being the S92 flying around without the Sea State 6 floats wired up, yet it will regularly fly over waters considerably greater than Sea State 6. What really are the chances of the oil companies pax all making it home alive in the event of a ditching/sinking aircraft. Risk mitigation or complacency driven by commercial pressure? Who is at fault here - the customer or the operator or both? Flying around knowing that you have very little chance of survival in the event of a ditching strikes me as incredibly naive, and I am amazed it can be certified. There are certain areas of the North Sea where there are still shuttle aircraft every night, making up to 15 landings or more, and this is actually increasing, all driven by a customer who has little regard for real safety considerations. Whilst flight safety is now becoming very organised and prominent amongst aviation companies, the same cannot be said for all of our customers, and now is the time to open the doors to dialogue. Invariably when an incident or accident occurs, the customer is the first to start pointing fingers at pilots, and calling for sackings but perhaps they should start looking inward as well.

The main problem is that briefing 15-18 landings 6 hours before is not always particularly effective. Secondly in certain aircraft - it doesnt matter how experienced you are, if you are sitting in the opposite side to landing, there is nothing you can see at all as to what reference the other pilot has to the deck. With a 60kt wind, a x-deck landing is not an option!

Horror Box,

I see the problem but that is, surely, where the experience of the Captain comes into play. If the visual cues are not good enough for the Captain to judge if the approach and landing is viable, from either seat, then throw it away.

I hear what you are saying, and that should be the case, but unfortunately it is not always like that. In the S92 for example, 95% of the time the NHP cannot see anything of the final approach to land on a deck due to the set-up of the cockpit windows and spars etc.. It is an unfortunate design for rig landings, but it is the aircraft more and more of us use now. The customer has demanded it! If the captain was to only allow a landing when he had good visual cues then he would be the only one landing!

I'd agree with Horror Box. Not flown the 92 but certainly the S-61 and AS332 have limited viz across the cockpit. Obviously 50% of the night time landings would be mine, of the other 50% I'd say I would have 'satisfactory' visual cues only about half of them - So (not scientific I know) but I guess we'd have to throw away about a quarter of all landings, and I often feel when landing offshore that I would like to throw at least that many - Not to mention my own cock-ups !!

In summary, even as an experienced Captain, I am placing a lot of faith in a potentially new, perfectly well trained but inexperienced co-pilot. Whilst I may be able to assess ground speed and rates of descent to see when it has really gone pear-shaped, when they are looking good, that still only gives me a guide that he or she has got it in hand and is making a safe approach to the deck - They could be headed for a crane for all I know, I'm unlikely to be able to see it.

Sorry, I think you missed the fact that I was talking about difficult approaches in difficult conditions.

Allowing the Co Pilot to land in normal conditions where the various hazards and obstacles can, initially, be view from the approach gives me no cause for concern. Trying to do such an approach and landing at night with a howling cross wind, precipitation and a moving deck would give me concerns!

I found the S61 quite good for cross cockpit, but then I'm quite tall so I could look well across the seat!

Judgment, as always, is a quality that we must all hone as without practice there will be no experience.

How many transport category fixed wing landings are done where only one pilot has a view of the runway...
Another difference we often forget!

W2P, how many of those 2000 landings were at night? It's an entirely different world in the dark. I did 2000 offshore landings in 2 months once, but they were all in the daytime. I have a couple of thousand or so in the dark, and I can assure you that it's far more difficult at night. Easy enough to say throw it away, but you either do the job or quit. I'm currently flying night EMS approaches to unprepared scenes, single pilot, and IMO it's far easier to do this than to do 2 pilot rig approaches at night. YMMV.

Gomer,

A large amount of those deck landings (40% or so) were at night to moving single spot ships flying single pilot operations and often having to use cross cockpit references in bad weather, so I think I'm up to speed on that one.

I have also flown as a SAR commander in both Scotland in the highlands and other places around Europe also using unprepared, unlit landing sites often in mountainous terrain and not using NVG or night sun.

I am well aware of the 'press on itis' that our professional pride causes us. But I have also had to throw away approaches or, in the case of SAR ops, opt for a more difficult approach and hover based upon tighter limits as the co-pilot expressed that the situation was out of his comfort zone. Fair call on them but the pressing needs of SAR required lateral thinking.

The responsibility for the aircraft, passengers and crew lies solely on the shoulders of the aircraft Captain. If the weather factors preclude a safely conducted landing then chuck it away. Better than swimming back to the board of inquiry.

W2P

PS, fixed wing flying is a doddle compared to SAR ops and the auto land thingy is great, the runways don't move, pitch or roll and are, generally, very long. Not really a snag and if the cross wind is out of limits, don't land. The book they throw if it goes wrong is very, very heavy.

I think we have diverged a little from the original debate into a bit of a dick swinging contest, and whilst I still agree with a great deal W2P has to say, I do think that reality these days can be a bit different, and CRM must be that much better when flying at night. In the old days when I flew Lynx, it really wasnt much of a problem to land x-cockpit, and actually it was also possible in a (but difficult) Puma, but definitely not in an S92, difficult in a 76, and I am guessing also very challenging in a 139. Here is where the problem begins. In an aircraft with good vis, it is a lot easier for the NHP to spot when things are going wrong. As we all know, it can go wrong very quickly, especially with disorientation, and it can happen anywhere, including very close to the deck. It can also take some time for the pilot to recognise this, and in certain circumstances, that can be the fatal factor. Now, if the captain cant see what is going on, the co-pilot (or other way round) is slow to recognise the problem then things get a lot worse, very quickly. I have experienced disorientation myself at night, during an approach, so I know how quickly the picture can go from perfect to completely wrong. The worst one was on relatively short finals to a deck, marginal (certainly not bad) weather, with fairly good viz. I have done 1000's night decks/CA's/mountains. I was lucky enough to spot it fairly quickly and didnt press on, and went around. This is definitely not always the case. I have never been disorientated the same way during the day, in any conditions.

The simple law of averages will lead you to the conclusion that after x number of SD occurrences sooner or later one will go wrong. Can you train for this? Yes - maybe to a certain degree. Will it happen again? Yes definitely. Will it cause another crash? Yes very likely. How do we avoid it in future? Improved technology (approach systems), better CRM procedures, SD training, better cockpit design, better deck design, finally - dont fly at night. All cost money - fact. Which is the cheapest? I dont know, but if nothing is done I suspect we will see more aircraft crash whilst flying to decks at night.

Horror Box,

I totally agree, I think the perspective has gone away from landing at night to landing in atrocious conditions. If that's thread creep then sorry, I am probably guilty as charged.

Night ops in benign or marginal weather is no problem. Things only start to get my neck hairs up when the weather deteriorates to such a degree that aircraft physical limitations are being put to the test. Would I let the Co-Pilot land in those conditions when I couldn't judge the landing site suitability, hazards or movement? Probably not, but that's a personal thing.

No dick waving intended, I think we just got a little cross wired in our discussion.

:)

W2P

OK, so we're back on thread !!

Hats off to Gomer flying EMS at night - Not something I think we do much in the UK and probably for good reason. I guess in well lit areas it probably doesn't pose too much of a problem, but most of those areas have a hospital within a short enough drive anyway !! Anyway, fly safe.

As to offshore, agreed, i've flown on some really great nights. Nice still air, not too many other aircraft about, ATC giving you whatever you want. Trouble is, as nights set in, so does the winter weather. Some people I've discussed this with have suggested different limits for public transport night flying, ie 10km viz and cloud base 1000 ft, but I can see us unable to fly on so many nights it would make it unworkable.

I'd personally like to see a ban on offshore deck operations at night - Permitting the transit of aircraft to and from offshore during darkness, but actual landings and take-offs prohibited due to the fact I just don't feel that the safety margins are there. There seems to be quite a bit of support for the idea that flying offshore at night isn't really safe enough, but there doesn't seem to be much feedback from the other camp. Are there pilots who feel it can be done with the level of safety we have managed to achieve with daylight flying ?? Last time this thread was raised, I seem to remember there were quite a few pilots who seemed to enjoy the challenge of a night deck, but then that thread really did become a testosterone fueled debate !!

Some good points there 25. I enjoy flying nights and 99% of the time feel in my comfort zone. The problem comes in that 1%. I do a lot of night decks, so as winter moves on become more comfortable (complacent??). I 100% agree with you on the statement about margins though. Whilst most of us are happy at night 99% of the time, what about that time when something goes wrong as you are departing into the black. Daytime - no problem, but a dark night, even a fairly small problem can be enough to tip the balance, especially if maybe you are a bit heavy, no wind, and the radios are busy. We have all been there. Add some more regular distraction, and the margins are very thin indeed. So if we can agree on this, and get the customers to agree, or at least understand, where do we go from here? I think the idea about increasing the minima for night flying is a good way of starting to increase the margin. 10k / 1000' - maybe. at least heading in the right direction. Shuttling at night with over 10 stops, in marginal weather is a good example of where perhaps more control with the use of minima and or number of stops (not necessarily no. of hours) could be effective. Fatigue is certainly a big factor here, and serves to greatly reduce the ability of pilots. I still catch myself thinking on occasion, on dark, stormy nights, we really are in the sh1t if it goes pear here!
Good debate though - keep it coming.

Flying at Night
 

I assume the accident statistics are accurate, and was thinking that some decades ago, the same could have probably been said within the fixed wing community.

So, what could the Helicopter Industry do to drive the safety performance to equality for day and night?

The fixed wing people have used:

1. Technology
2. Crew Training/Certification

to great success.

I'd offer that this is a solvable problem awaiting action.

John Dixson

Totally agree. Not flying at night is a non-starter IMO. We would be hugely limiting ourselves, and our usefulness to the customer. It can and is being done safely in some ops. As stated in a previous post - technology, training, CRM are probably the way ahead. Now lets just smash the piggy banks and find some cash!

There are a few nuts to be cracked here, but the cross-cockpit thingie is a fairly major one I should think. If you're headed to a fixed platform with significant structure (which would be most of 'em) and it's blowing substantially, at the current state of the art there's really only one seat who can safely land with sufficient cues and able to clear obstacles (regardless of pilot height... "Hello love, I'm not really this tall, I'm just sitting on my wallet..."), unless somebody starts redesigning offshore platforms. By the time the copilot is good enough at conning the captain in for a landing including closure rates and obstacles, the copilot is probably good enough to be making the landing.
As was pointed out above, with a runway in front, the captain pretty much has the choice of making the landing virtually always.
Instrumentation and approaches, the technology is certainly there, but what do you do if the captain doesn't trust the copilot to make the actual landing but yet due to conditions can't make it him or herself?

I fly offshore at night on the odd medevac, but not so much as once did in a previous life... but in that life, the ship took up the heading you wanted so the wind was where you wanted it.

For the sake of arguments, let's say that this is a nut that should be cracked (there are plenty who would go the other way... and I may be one of them). Regardless of any value judgment of should or shouldn't... it seems apparent to me simply by the existence of this thread that this nut WILL be cracked, so might as well get on with it.

I would think the next step would be to precisely define the problem and the flight regimes that need to be addressed. Once that's been done, then you look to the hows.

What you fellows need is a performance technologist... happily... somewhere around here is a piece of paper that probably says I are one. What a performance technologist will normally do is engage experts on the subject matter to precisely define the scope of the problem, then from there determine the needs that have shortfalls (it is not necessary that the technologist be a subject matter expert him or herself... often it's better if not, actually... keeps 'em out of the weeds...). From there develop objectives and potential solutions, be those solutions engineering solutions (hardware), job aids (checklists or other such), administrative (regulation or policy... "no cojos without X program offshore at night" or whatever), or training (development and implementation of new techniques and procedures). It's really not that difficult, but it is a structured way of viewing and solving complex operational problems. Pretty much most militaries and companies worth their salt use it these days.

As just one example, we can probably all say that cruising at altitude offshore isn't really much of an issue these days... but some point or points during the letdown/approach/transition/touchdown phases... is/are. Then start breaking the problem into manageable chunks... pretty soon it becomes fairly obvious where the weaknesses are that need to be addressed. Then it simply becomes a matter of how, selling it to the boss... and getting the money!

Wow, I knew I should have taken that management course when it was offered to me - I've been bamboozled by science !!!

All I know is, I need to convince the oil companies that flying by night is not the same as flying by day. That no matter how good my co-pilot is, that is not relevant, because even if its my landing, I as an experienced Captain with thousands of North Sea hours, can't guaranty the safety of passengers by night with anywhere near the confidence that I can by day.

We need to ask if flying by night will ever really be safe enough for public air transport ?? I think there is some figure for the 'acceptable accident rate' acknowledging the fact that there will always be accidents, but that with the correct proceedures in place, they should fall somewhere in the 1 accident in 10 million flying hours (or something like that), and I think we've seen over the last two years that while daylight flying accounts for the majority of hours flown, night flights account for the vast majority of accidents and fatalities.

Can this be improved with technology - Probably improved, yes.

Will training and CRM help ? - I doubt it, only because I think this is at a pretty high standard already.

Will policy help ? - Well I'd certainly welcome a reduction in deck shuttles, only because statistically, flying to 1 or maybe 2 decks then back home is clearly going to reduce the risk period offshore.

Is flying at night really that necessary ? - I would argue "Not really". As I said early on, even in the darkest weeks of winter, the whole of the North Sea would still get 8 - 9 usable daylight hours offshore. In terms of emergencies offshore, we now have Jigsaw and SAR units available with the equipment, crews and training to do just this.

We're talking of flying fare paying passengers here. Public Air Transport, and so I want to be able to say that my passengers have the same level of safety whenever they fly with me. I've taken my children on jump seat rides to show them what I do for a living, but I wouldn't dream of taking them at night - Not that I could take a jump-seat at night, the company doesn't allow it - Not safe enough !!!

"Not flying at night is a non-starter IMO. We would be hugely limiting ourselves, and our usefulness to the customer".

Hey Horror box, why non-starter?? If all offshore helicopter operators agreed to stop flying at night due to safety,what will the customers do??? Stop flying to rigs??? :rolleyes:
Number one issue is safety,and as special 25 said, and I agree, I can't offer the same level off safety at night as in the daytime...S76 off an NUI at max gross,night,ltd viz:yuk: Not a good outcome if things go wrong... Gas rigs on the S.North sea can be de-manned just 2 hours earlier and stay in daylight...would that really be a problem for them considering the safety risks? There is really no need or justification for it anymore.....Just because "we have always done it," doesn't mean it's right or cannot be changed...
Fly safe
PH

Special 25-

Good for you. Somebody paid for the course and who was I to say no? I don't work in the latitudes you do, but even without a table of statistics in front of me I tend to agree with you. I can't imagine (outside a medevac) what risk v. gain model is satisfied by not waiting until first light or by making night transport a matter of routine. I foresee more ground incidents as well as flight incidents, but I'm probably just an old woman.

Trouble is, nobody cares what you or I think just because we think it. It's my thought that since you originated this thread (and your previous one, I suppose) that you're probably of the opinion that you believe this is a bad idea and you maybe aren't sure how to convey that to people who see flying at night as adding something to the bottom line. There may be a couple oblique ways of getting at it. One might be the insurance angle. Maintaining a night medevac standby is one thing, blotting out the moon with dozens of machines is quite another to your average actuary, I should think. It may be that I don't understand how rigs operate in the N. Sea, as I seem to be getting the impression from a couple of these posts that they all experience a significant crew reduction at the end of the day, which is different from my experience, where the crew manning remains more or less constant around the clock, it's just different guys from time to time. It's also possible I misinterpret... it wouldn't be the first time.

From the technology angle, I quite imagine that the current state of the art is good enough to deposit the helicopter in a position to make a landing. However, it's that last bit that concerns me. It's a different situation than military flying on night vision where the ship is on board with the fact that you need the lights dim, it's a transition from utter darkness to an insane amount of lighting (and vice-versa) with all the opportunities for disorientation that can come from that. While I suppose an argument can be made that "but Gomer Pilot does it..." I submit his situation in EMS is different in terms of urgency, so I don't think any direct comparison can be made, though some schmuck will try it, of course.

Ultimately, the upper management of both the customer and the helicopter company need to get their arms around the risk assessment. Risk is always a function of severity and exposure time... if you can demonstrate that night offshore flying has a higher severity (and I think you can), you can justify a reduction in exposure time and THAT will positively affect the bottom line... you have to beat these people at their own game. There are plenty of risk assessment and CRM models available and plenty of people who are much more clued up on them than I will ever be.

Flying Offshore at Night
 

Flying at night is trickier than by day but that is our bread and butter during the Winter months. It takes alot more concentration and I am not sure the new green deck lights are better than
floodlit decks. The final parts of the approach need to be flown by numbers so that you do not arrive too fast and too high with constant calls from non handling pilot for height, groundspeed, etc. I tend to talk new do-pilots onto decks at night and have not had any problems even when unsighted. The more interested part of the flight is lifting off the front deck of a ship at night in bad visiblity, now that takes concentration.


Would it not be possible to have some sort of 360 degree angle of approach indicator. I realise that a pitching and rolling ship would require some sort of stabilization device.


In my old age I am begining to think that if it is not going to be possible due to strong winds, high seas, to remain upright in event of ditching or get dinghies deployed safely maybe we should not be flying. Drifting slightly off track what do others feel.

Outside of training, I cannot remember doing a cross deck landing in more than 30 years offshore flying. In that time the other pilot has had experience from brand new to captain, so broad range of experience. Yes night flying requires more time, slower approach, at least one good brief so both are in tune. Many, but not all by any means, give a short commentary on the way down i.e. "good sight picture, clear of obstacles, coming/crossing the deck edge." This works for me as I have a mental picture of the approach and the delivery gives me an idea of their state of mind. If I'm relaxed then there's a good chance the other guy is too.

I appreciate that this may not appeal to many, but it keeps my stress levels down.

Check, I too like the constant commentary from the handling pilot whether I'm sighted or not. Just gives you a good idea as to how the approach is going and you can tell from their voice, how they are coping with it, whether all is well or if they are having difficulty.

The problem is (if you can call it that) I've never had to go around from a night time approach or had a major problem landing at night. But I'm aware that when it does happen, it'll happen quickly, I may not be aware that it has gone wrong until it has become too late.

I was interested in this report from Australia of a 332 that flew into the water at night whilst approaching a boat and entered vortex ring. Both successfully exited the ditched aircraft and were rescued

...... Both pilots were focussing their attention both inside and outside the cockpit rather than having one pilot assigned to look outside and fly the approach and the other to monitor the instruments; neither pilot had experience with visual illusions and both had a high comfort level with the operation being conducted. Both pilots were Training Captains .........

It just this feeling, it can happen to anyone. Will happen quickly and the onset of problems won't be immediately recognisable, as it would be with the visual cues available during the day.

I've been passed a few reports and websites regarding analysis of offshore accidents. It is certainly making for some very interesting reading - I'm trying to collate some facts and figures and will report back. The quick summary is that accidents used to be largely mechanical failures, but these seem to be reducing dramatically, I guess to due improvements in aircraft design. Also, flying sectors have reduced over the years and so, as we are flying less now you would expect less accidents. Combine these together and you get the situation we are in now where our safety record is really very good, but those accidents we have are proportionally more likely to be pilot error.

More to come !!