A helicopter crashes in SoCal a few months ago and it gets national coverage. A helicopter crashes on one of our platforms and it gets ignored. By even the local papers. Well. I see where we stand. Of course the crash a few months ago killed three people and no one died in our crash. Stupid survivors.

Anyhoo, what happened a few days ago was a big deal for us. The helicopter was coming in for a landing on Platform Irene. Basic landing procedure is the helicopter comes in at an angle, slows to a stop hovering over the platform and then rotates to put the front and back of the chopper (the two most dangerous places on a moving helicopter) as far away from the crew walkway as possible.

It's a simple procedure we've done a thousand times. For whatever reason, this time, the tail rotor clipped the deck of the drill unit (which, alongside the cranes, is one of three things standing higher than the helipad). The rotor blades tore off causing the helicopter to spin out of control. Say what you will about the pilots for hitting the drill deck, they still managed to keep that spinning helicopter on the helipad instead of losing it into the ocean. It crash landed on its side causing minor injuries to the passengers.

We've yet to get the full backlash from the FAA or MMS, and the company is gonna be out here probably more than once to "try and keep this from ever happening again" or something (they always try to look proactive whenever something goes wrong to help justify their existence).

Oh well. At least they've got another chopper. Was afraid we'd all be trapped out here indefinitely slowly going crazy without any way to get home. We'll probably still go crazy, but at least we'll have a way to send the wounded to the hospital once the shooting starts.

Toodles!

-Aaron
Phil. 1:3