Black Dragon,

If you step back and look at say.. what's new in west Africa (Nigeria) thread, I think you will find Shell Management is a sort of Borat rip off merchant....:{
Very knowledgeable in helicopter ops but a complete piss taker.... :E

Probably spent tooo much time hopping local honeys in the street bars in Nigeria..:eek:

Relax dude, everybody got out......:ok:

I think it's vital not to lose sight of the main issues.

The evidence proves that the company actually made a very good risk assessment. The crew selection and training were obviously well up to the job, the captain made an excellent response to the emergency situation.

The on-board safety equipment also did its job. The post accident issues were those of surviving the immediate water landing until rescued. No lives were lost here. Liferafts were proven to be unneccesary. In a colder climate, with a longer likely rescue period, they would be.

Seems to me that the main discussion should revolve around aircraft design and maintenance issues. But only when the evidence has been gathered and assessed by experts.

These incidents / accidents posted here always seem to rapidly draw "holier than thou" armchair experts out of the woodwork. Truly professional people, in my experience, keep criticism to themselves at least until after the accident report, rather than trying in advance to stir up trouble.

Facts Found:

1. Tail Rotor Gear Box departed in flight. All survived.
2. er...
3. ummm...
4. ?????

And some of the latest speculation from Shell M.!

1. "I make no judgement on the operators SMS, but I will observe they have no oil and gas customers so are probably not very adavanced."

Good grief! Can you explain that? (Oughta' be good.) Then you go an list a very commendable and thorough list of 'risk reduction initiatives'. Well done. So what? Are you selling something?

griffothefog, 'Borat rip off merchant' wasn't the first word which sprung to mind, I must admit. I think BD makes a very pertinent point. Shell M. clearly has no clue in context, does he? Great in the West Africa thread...maybe even funny! His list is meaningless in this discussion unless he relates it to the operation we are talking about. He's yet to do that. Choose who you defend matey, because you'll look stupid if he does.

ShyTorque +1

(hehe! This is fun.)

Chi,

Re-read my thread......
SM is the master of piss take.......:ugh:

As Frankie said.... "relax" :ok:

Yes, but they had more than an ounce of luck and some fortunate timing on their side. I dare say if the TRGB decided to depart the scene when they were half way across to Hong Kong on route C in the pitch blackness of night then the outcome might not have been the same.

So what? It didn't happen that way and if it did, would a liferaft have made a difference?

ST - I do take issue with you in some respects with your comment above about "truely professional people etc etc".
While you and I would fully agree that inapproriate and ill-informed comments and debate are not the sign of "truely professional people", I see no problem with profesional and informed debate on such matters on such a forum as this. People should not rush to judge of course, particulary if tragic circumstances are involved, but to suggest that suppression of knowledgeable and sensible debate is the best way forward until a (often lengthy) period of Inquiry has ensued, is not the way in our democratic society - thinking before speaking (writing!) is perhaps better advice, with no false judgements in the absence of specific evidence.
Cheers
:ugh::O

Shell Management: Wow, a little touchy aren't we, 'Saint Kack' and 'irrational hatred', I've certainly learned how to push your button haven't I.

Now, take a look at the subsequent postings and take note of the remarks made regarding yourself and your postings.

After doing this, go to the 'Whats New in West Africa' thread, Post #3997 and you'll read "...Frankly I don't why anyone is giving SM (Shell Management) airtime - surely no one believes his comments to be genuine?..."

My suggestion to you now is to start your own thread, entitled something like 'Ask the Expert' where we mortals can ask you a whole range of questions regarding commercial and non-commercial helicopter activities and be assured of a authoritative answer. I'll start the ball rolling with this; 'Are the objectives of Shell Management/Shell Aircraft and the IHST compatible and what are the implications to commercial and non-commercial operators." Looking forward to your reply, but please, don't answer on this thread we'll be rightly accused of thread drift.

Shell Management isn't although he would probably like to be. He is funny though, I always enjoy his tongue in cheek postings!

Shell Management must be laughing his socks off, he's had more bites on this thread than a bath full of piranhas!

SM
 

B....r me, yur right!! I've just read some of his posts

I would rate him Bristow and in (or been in) Nigeria. Loves Shell ;).

Not only SM getting the bites, eh?, ;)

hmmm... the ex-CEO's article is interesting as he was the main guy against trading payload for liferafts from day one! Also read his facebook entry on HeliHeli describing SMS and responsibility. He must have had an epiphany (or read a book)!

I happen to agree with him by the way, because the same thing happening at night out on the southern route (Charly) between HK and Macau would not have been too pretty. Pax would not have been picked up for hours. 13 people floating around separately in the dark??? (Some couldn't even find their lifejackets during daylight). Fatalities would be highly probable.

Said it for years...liferafts on this operation - "a no brainer".

One more thing on liferafts. While I believe this operation should have them, there is nothing irrational about these passengers trying to inflate them in flight.

When the company had S76, there were several occasions where pax have unlocked doors in flight, ignored ground crew and disembarked out the wrong side, and one passenger even tried the emergency door release in flight just for kicks.

Let me clarify that the ground ops in this operation is very vigilant and assertive in making sure procedures are followed, but these pax have a mind of their own and refuse to pay attention for safety demonstrations or instructions.

Liferafts are a must because of the route environment, particularly at night, but need to be pilot controlled and deployed.

Rumour has it today,
Divers have found the Tail Rotor Gear Box-- minus 1 blade.:uhoh:

I'd be very surprised if the TRGB had any blades attached :p

The 'rational' trajectory
 

In 1975 we went to work in the North Sea in a wooly-pully and airline pilots trousers......... then came a spate of ditchings so we gained the infamous 'UVIC' survival jacket. Meanwhile the pax were toying with survival suits. We all tied our 'once-only' lifejackets around our waists - at least they would be there if you hopped out in a hurry. Next came pucka goonsuits for the pax whilst lifejackets remained in their pouches tied round the waist........... more ditchings..... so we - the crew that is - finally got a goonsuit and a Mk44 military lifejacket. Pax started to get proper constant-wear lifejackets too. Now we would never think of going offshore without the right kit.

Someone applied what must have seemed at the outset to be a sensible 'rationale' to the Macau flights:- benign environment for most operations, no open water and lots of potential rescue boats. Nothing quite like a 'nasty' to make you revisit your 'sensible rationale' however, and I don't think anyone will be surprised if the regulators and the operators now agree that probably liferafts are a good idea and maybe a different approach to lifejackets. No loss of face, just learning lessons that to some old North Sea hands may have seemed inevitable. There you go, history repeats itself and as George Bernard Shaw said 'the one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history'.

Sometimes I do wonder about our industry............. still to cheer me up I hear that the HAI safety initiative has moved to create a Code of Practice for all (including offshore!!!) corporate operations. As the team leader is an ex-Shelly this is guaranteed to make some Gomers take a deep breath and will no doubt bring on a few tears ...... and I will be surprised if they are tears of joy.

Back to Macau and couldn't miss the opportunity to congratulate the pilot on a job well done. Text book stuff.

G. :ok:

Geoffers, inside guy at Agusta....
Any more info on what caused the T/R gearbox to depart? Agusta's bulletin says consistent with FOD, but they could as easily have added that it was also consistent with a migrating undiscovered fatigue crack, or consistent with poor maintenance and someone forgetting to lock or safety wire something.

Outstanding airmanship by the pilot. I wonder if he had Rotorsim training and the training syllabus includes the tailrotor gearbox departing emergency, or whether he'd learned all his fine art at CHC.

Can anyone post a link to the Agusta bulletin please?

Di :O

Ah...you must have seen all the HUMS data, and be an aviation crash expert. I guess you have experience in all the other HUMS data from previous aircraft incidents.

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I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that it would be possible to tell the difference between say a worsening crack which would show up on HUMS at least a 'split second' before failure, and a sudden catastrophic event in which every parameter was 'in the green' and stable right up until an event which ended every reading instantly.

But I really don't know.

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Why so eager and quick to cry 'foul'? What is this morbid fascination people have which leads them to 'leap' to the conclusion that someone ballsed up, that there is a cover up...and all before understanding the truth.

FFS, give the guys in Macau credit. They are pilots like you....if there was any kind of foul play or negliagence, I'm sure PPrune will be the first to know.

In the meantime, hold back on making fcukwit kind of comments like yours above.