As the beacon appears to be under water it would not be operative.

Fareastdriver,
You're correct that the ADELT should have been deployed before the aircraft was ditched. As Greeny9 says, it will still operate in its housing, but will not be as effective

Resolved in so far as expecting the passengers to manually switch-off their PLB to avoid the issue.

Ersa "So target Zero stands up:D "


Is this all you can spend time doing? Slagging management - you really need to get this whole affair in perspective. The cause has not been released and you are grabbing onto anything that may further your cause to have a pop at Bristows Operations. Lets hears the official report before assuming anything.

Tistisnot - as I understand it, a SART is a transponder not a transmitter so it has to be interrogated by a ship's radar to get a response - therefore you have to be in range of a ship's radar to be detected.

A 406 Mhz beacon however, is visible to satellites and the two messages about its owner and its position are transmitted every 50 seconds or so - the satellite picks up those messages and transmits them to an earth station (LUT) when it sees one.

The UK MCA have their own monitoring setup - which was embedded in the ARCCK - and can quickly identify whose beacon it is.

Which one would you prefer?

All ELTs/EPIRBS perform best when the aerial has a clear view of the sky - not suprisingly really - so deploying them properly will always give a better signal.

The 225 incident had to do with 121.5 beacons not 406 beacons (although 406 ones have an embedded 121.5 transmitter in them as well)

Crab

The 406 transmits the HEX code and ac gps position if linked or its own gps position if installed .... where there is no SAR ac I would prefer the SART as it will trigger alarms on nearby vessels .... fine telling someone miles away - if they have assets to deploy.

Many ac nowadays will have an ISAT for the company to ascertain the ac's whereabouts.

that's the point I was making - if there are no nearby vessels then no-one knows you have ditched - the 406 alerts are international and at least someone in your company or in your country of operation would be alerted.

Then whatever SAR assets there are can be deployed, even if they take a while to get there - it's got to be better than sitting there hoping a boat comes close enough to ping your SART with its radar. Standard radar horizon is about 20 nm.

Do the Bristow Nigeria aircraft have satellite comms? I presume by ISAT you mean inmarsat?

tgbvhy15,
Just what are you trying to imply in your post? You seem to be good at making remarks which whilst not directly offensive or critical can clearly be implied as so.

Crab and tsitisnot,
Talk about thread drift! All helicopters that I know of operating in the O&G sector offshore in Nigeria have some form of ADELT/CPI either on the aircraft or life rafts and the crew have some form of emergency beacon on their jackets. To the best of my knowledge, all the helicopter companies have rescue beacons operating on 406MHz.

The crew of the S76 had already been in contact with approach and informed them of the fact that they may have to ditch. The only big problem is that in Nigeria we have no credible offshore Search and Rescue which I believe to be a national disgrace in a country of our size and wealth. I am very happy that all the occupants of BQJ are safe and I hope that this might spur our government to properly equip NEMA with at least 4 proper SAR helicopters based in Lagos, and Port Harcourt at the very least, but preferably also in either Escravos or Benin and Calabar or Eket. I'm sorry, but knowing my people, it probably won't happen in my lifetime.

Glad to hear everyone is ok. However I'm wondering how the recent layoffs of experienced expats and the nationalization of Bristow Nigeria have affected safety and crew standards?

I wouldn't be surprised if this so called water landing was the result of a miscalculation or misinterpretation by an all national crew.

I take it neither of you are familiar with the term 'corporate memory'?

Yur all off!
 

Guys and gals. This whole thing has got nothing to do with any of the thoughts put forward... Willful blindness on the part of Mgmt... Or lack of experienced expat crews. There is no difference between 100 hrs in a R22 and 3000hrs of bush flying experience. The only thing that matters is that GOD made the controlled landing happen. Whether he intervened during the flight planning process by interfering with HUMP .. Or during the actual flight... It was Devine intervention . Perhaps we should carefully think about what is the real reason. We should all repent and pray that we should all be so lucky. The really great news is that Easter will be upon us soon along with mr floppy ears. It may be a bit of an reach but do you suppose that the Easter bunny knows the tooth ferry? Probably. AMEN!

Let the hero worship begin:

https://www.naij.com/721285-meet-fem...cean-pics.html

And here her "feat of heroism" is compared to the August crash, implying that had she been there it would have ended differently:

Bristow Heroine: Jayeola, Nigeria?s 1st Female Helicopter Captain Who ?Saved? 11 lives in Lagos Crash! - Sunday Adelaja's Blog

Ridiculous, tasteless...and racist. But I guess it makes me ridiculous, tasteless and racist to voice that opinion...

Wow! I am speechless! Where do these people get their information!?

It's funny, in the first article the captain flew an apparently new model: the S-76X++. :D

On the second one, as the article goes on, the number of people the captain saved increases. First it was 11 pax then it increases to 13! pretty amazing!

And then goes on to say that the captain of the august crash (Jay, may he rest in peace) only joined the company the previous year??? uuuhh what!?

Anyway, let's all praise captain Abimbola and her outstanding, heroic, split second decision to land the helicopter on the ocean in order to save the lives of 15 people!!

Welcome to the twilight zone......

I have never flown a S-76 and was not around when this happened. I do find it curious (if true) that a distress call was made and a split second decision was made to ditch 20 minutes later.:rolleyes:

Welcome to planet Earth, piloto. Apparently you are about the only one left to realize much of the information you get from the media can be erroneous.

What else do you guys expect to come out of the center of excellence? You had to be there to believe it. Can't wait for Keke to put his spin on this.

Centre of excellence....................

i'd rather know the circumstances requiring the act of a ditching. technical? fuel? smudged lipstick? oops, thats out of order. :E

Any more on the rumour they didn't have enough fuel?

I'm gonna bet on the lipstick theory