North Sea incident today (12th June 09)
 

Don't have a lot of details on this but report was of lost engine.

Problably not a massive issue to you pros, landed on platform safely...awaiting engineer I believe.

In addtion, I'm told it was Bristows and it landed on the Auk.

Checked the Bristows site : 76P ATD - 14:41 Status still at Outbound.

Loss of an engine in flight for any pilot with a current Certificate of Test (LPC) should not be a problem!!!!

That was a bit careless. Losing an engine? Wonder where it is. :eek:

As stated, not a big issue unless you only have one engine. Even then, isn't that what we're trained for?
;)

No like I said not a big deal to the pilots but pax bit concerned.

Sure we had one lose (power) to an engine and they ended up turning back but guess it was more sensible to land on this occasion.

76P had an engine chip warning and landed on the Auk - sorry to disappoint but it didn't have an engine failure!

It took a long time to fix because of the difficulty in getting an engineer out to the installation - I believe Bond Jigsaw helped out - then it seems the battery was left on too long and went flat during the start, and the offshore ground power was unserviceable. Had to send a ground power unit by boat from the Fulmar etc etc. The "Chip" was a tiny sliver of course....

HC

If they lost an engine, wouldn't it affect their W&B?

Of course just kidding, glad everyone onboard was safe and sound.

In other words, another day on the North Sea? Chip light? Come on. Wonder how many more there were that day?

Any reason the pilots didn't check the engine chip plug themselves? What operator would let a pilot fly an aircraft without ensuring that first they can at least pull and check a bayonet-type chip plug?

Yeah right!!!!! I remember a day when we were trusted to do such things, but come on Malabo, you know the answer here - I sense you are after a bite! We are not even allowed to look at the cowlings to closely or for too long in case we get funny ideas about opening them!

How big was the chip found a week before the 332 shucked it's rotor?

The Sultan

Why cant you check out a simple mag plug.!! Looks like a QAM problem

Probably because they are wirelocked and most of us don't carry a pair of snips/wirelocking pliers and a roll of wire.

NST

Failure or not it wouldn't have mattered, spare one in the bag.

Don't shoot the messenger....after all it does say rumour network ;)

GJM,

Yes, but a pilot's rumour forum; could I suggest that you find a maritime forum and make foolish comments there.

Any one who dismisses the consequence of an engine failure (on a rig take-off or landing) lightly, clearly does not understand the issues.

oldlag - gone are the days when pilots could make any such intervention; additionally, having looked at the magplug, what next?

Mars

What was foolish about reporting on something I was told, I knew it would be corrected if wrong by those in the know.

Who is dismissing anything, as you know I'm not a pilot the general feeling of the fully trained pilot seems to be that loss of an engine is not such an issue.

I as the outsider would have thought it's not the cleverest thing to have to deal with.

Yes a pilots rumour forum but I would have to hazzard a guess that there are a large number of non pilots that post, of course you will have to take my inferior non pilot opinion on that!

Perhaps a look at other things, like attitude, size of head and other chips, ie ones on shoulder!

The standard answer from a "tabloid reporter" only interested in generating scandal. I would like to think that Pprune was more of a "quality paper", where the journos would report only stuff they had validated. Looking at your previous posts you seem to like to pick up on any potential scandal and post it, without any knowledge of the issues. This does nothing to enhance safety, improve the image of the industry, or keep the passengers who read this forum from a constant state of worry

HC

Ah the good old days....when you were issued a small canvas tool bag that contained yer wire, pliers, and chip gouge for comparing what you found, and a collection of paper shop towels and plastic baggies for collecting the offending items for the Engineer's use when you got back home.

Some American outfits have FAA approved training courses for their pilots for just such an occasion as happened. The pilot is always the last call on whether the aircraft is flown after the chip plug is pulled and thus can call for the spanner droppers if he deems it proper before firing the old bird up again.

But....that would require opening a cowling and getting one's hands greasy.

If you have never flown in the bush....you just haven't really flown helicopters!:=

Nowadays, in the Southern North Sea, don't the engineers just leave the ball of lock wire up in the control run area so that it's there to use when necessary? :=:rolleyes:

Flaming MARS
 

Wow MARS that was a bit heavy going. I think thats called flaming.
Flying profiles are what we are paid for and trained for.

Maybe a new thread for acronyms of MARS

I'll start : Miserable And Rarely Smiles ;)

Heli-phile,

I had decided to stay out of this thread (and the one on the Gold Coast accident) but your remarks have intrigued me. Would it be possible for you to explain this:Jim

WOW I'm a Man of Intrigue!!
 

Not sure what to add to last?.
Are you "intrigued' by my stance on excessive 'flaming' of posters or my stance on the folly of SE operations over urban areas??

Give us a clue??

Heli-phile,

With respect to this thread, your comment "flying profiles are what we are paid for and trained for": I assume it was in respect to this thread, offshore operations and engine failures.

Just intrigued as to what you meant?

Jim

Hi jiml
 

As commercial pilots, we are trained to handle non normal events. when these occur we fall back on our training. In this case proceedures were followed and no doubt the appropriate (performance) profile was flown to a safe landing.
We should never be complacent with any non normal situation on the other hand we should not get upset if some people consider us merely doing our job.
I hope that is what you were meaning?

Mars has it right when he says DB has it wrong when he says Which is a bit worrying since he wants to design new offshore ways of operating! (or maybe he just didn't want to worry the many passengers who have latched onto this forum!). Doesn't look like heliphile understands either.

The industry does tend to gloss over the fact that we operate PC2 offshore and I suspect that if you ask a group of pilots many of them haven't really thought about ditching (or worse) following an engine failure during takeoff and landing offshore. Fortunately suffering an engine failure during the critical few seconds of takeoff or landing offshore is an extremely remote event (never happened in the history of the N Sea) but it could happen. Of course there are many other far more probable ways of falling into the sea as we have recently seen. IMHO the industry has not been good at training for engine failures during takeoff / landing offshore, though with increased use of simulators this is improving.

Just to re-iterate however, this was not an engine failure event!

For Oldlag, we 225 pilots can check the chip detectors and replace them and sign the CRS, but unfortunately the maintenance manual also requires the fixed mag plugs and oil filter to be checkded following a chip, and a stab made at identifying the source of the chip. In the present climate, we would always send out an engineer.

HC

This is just anecdotal from someone with more time in my company than me. There is a tale of a SNS aircraft that suffered a rundown just at the point of rotation and the pilot stuck it back on the deck, contrary to SOPs. He was interviewed for that despite proving a ditching would have resulted. Could be an urban myth.

fkelly

I think that HC means that there has never been a ditching as a result of an engine failure during the critical few seconds during and after take off.

There have certainly been a few failures, I had one in an S61 just after rotation but it didn't result in a ditching thanks to cool temperatures and a 25 knot wind.

Surely this must be operator specific ?

NST

Maybe no ditchings but some that were too close for comfort.

In the old Bond days they had a 105 offshore that lost a turbine and caught fire, pilot was told not to land back on but ignored the "good advice" and stuck it back on the helideck.

They also has a 365C offshore that lost an engine just after takeoff. The second engine didn't wind up to max due to an internal FCU problem. He found himself with insufficient power to land back on and eventually made a run on landing at North Denes. It was after this one that they brought in the max NG checks

NST - yes, operator specific. We receive annual training and then a company authorisation from the Q&S department for some tasks requiring a CRS, such as refitting of seats, checking/refitting self-sealing chip detectors etc

ericferret / fkelly, as I said there has not been an engine failure during the critical period of takeoff or landing in the history of the North Sea. The events you refer to (and others) were during the other 99.99% of the time

HC

No standard answer, this is what I was told by......well perhaps they were not made fully aware and anyway my reason for posting was that I knew that if it was false then it would be promptly corrected by those in the no so to speak, which it was.

As I said the name of the forum does include the word rumour so to think that every single thing posted on it is 100% gospel would be somewhat off the mark....I'm sure this is the case with other forums.

The passengers were worried, perhaps they would be less worried if they knew the exact reason as it doesn't sound overly serious.

As for being a journo, that's a million miles off the mark.

Quesiton : How important are QFE and QNH to a pilot landing on a helideck and do the helicopters have their own devices for such readings.

GJM

I was not suggesting you were a journo, just that your justification for spreading false and damaging rumour was that of a tabloid journo. Yes the forum includes "rumour" but it also includes the word "pilot's".

Anyway, you have asked a reasonable question which, although off topic, warrants an answer. The answer is one or other is quite important for a bad weather or night approach (one can be derived from the other) since it allows checking of the radalt. For nice day landing, not very important. Although the aircraft's own altimeters measure pressure, that would be the pressure at the current altitude, not the sea-level or deck level pressure which is what is needed.

HC

A charmed life is lead by many. Two engine failures, one at CDP on a rig, another during take off at home base. Same aircraft, alternate engines and 18 months or so apart. (S-76C)

The point that HC is trying to make is not that "there have ben very few, if any" engine failures, but that there have been none during the 'period of exposure' for PC2 operations. Any failures that occur and have successful outcomes were, by definition, not in an 'exposure' period.

I'm not wishing to put words in HC's mouth, but I think that's his point.

As we well know HC has no hesitation in putting his argument. The comment I was making was in light of his "it's an extremely remote event". Statistically it may well be, but the inference I was making in light of that statement was what are the chances of one individual having two engine failures during take off, one of those being at the most critical point on a rig take off. I can only fully endorse HC's comment
But then HC has little respect for my opinions.

HC,

Thanks for the response, yes question was off topic but didn't wan't to clutter your forum by starting another thread.

Reason I asked was I was once covering heli-ops on an offshore installation and I noticed the QNH or QFE was not showing, so I called the radio op that had been on shift about it and they said not a problem they don't need it.

So once have comms with the pilot, pass him all the details bar either the QNH and QFE and sure as eggs is eggs, he asks for it so now I have to be the village idiot or waffle crap.....

So I explained it was out of service currently, anyway he made a bit of a hoo haa about it and said he would land since the weather was not to bad but had it been poor weather I got the impression he would have knocked it on the head.