While last month’s helicopter crash into the North Sea had a happy ending with everyone surviving, today’s crash off the coast of Canada did not. Like last month’s crash, there were 18 on board, but this time there are 16 missing from the helicopter which was on its way to an oil platform in the Atlantic.
Hunt for Canada crash survivors
Rescuers are searching freezing water for 16 people missing after a helicopter reported mechanical problems and ditched into the Atlantic Ocean.
Of the 18 on board, one person was rescued by another helicopter and one person was confirmed dead after the crash off Newfoundland, said officials. The other 16 were missing about 30 miles out to sea off the coast of Canada’s easternmost province.
Two life-rafts were spotted in the water, but rescuers later confirmed they were empty. “The two life-rafts have been checked and there is nobody in them,” said Mr Grychowski. “They’re still searching because they would have had their survival suits on.”
Major Denis McGuire, of the rescue co-ordination centre, said the water temperature was zero and rescuers would have about 24 hours to find them if they were wearing a survival suit. Everyone on board the helicopter would have been required to wear such a suit, which are equipped with water-activated locator beacons.
Sad, sad, sad. The problem with these crashes, as I have mentioned before, is that usually when a helicopter drops out of the sky the passengers don’t get a chance to utilize their survival training. Here’s hoping they find more survivors, but the prognosis is probably grim.
Thanks for posting this, Robert. A friend of mine knew every soul on that helicopter. Newfoundlanders are very tight knit, island culture being what it is. Terrible news.
Lawrence,
Newfie in Baton Rouge
Very sad news, thanks for the post. I don’t think they have much chance in the freezing water but lets hope a miracle happens.
Take care, Elli
I have a very rational fear of rotating equipment. I do not like standing nest to them nor would I want to get inside of them. My hat is off to all of those who take the risk.
“A preliminary examination by Nobel Environmental Power, owner of the $200 million, 65-turbine Altona Wind Park, and General Electric Co., manufacturer of the 1.5-megawatt turbines, found “wiring anomalies” prevented two turbines from shutting down as designed during a power outage.
On Friday morning, one tower collapsed and started a small fire in snow-covered woods, while the other faulty tower was damaged but remained standing, according to a statement from Noble. Debris from the collapsed tower was flung up to a quarter-mile away, according to published reports. No one was hurt.”
http://www.midwestiso.org/page/Total+Wind+Generation
@ Kit P
“wiring anomalies”
QC just isn’t what it used to be ?
C’mon this is a GE product ? or was it board work they outsourced to China ??
RBM
You are right RBM somebody screwed up but the accident investigation is at the root blame portion. It is too early to know the root cause. My first job out of the navy was a test engineer for GE. I cam in one morning to a plant during commissioning testing to be greeted with you sold us junk. The turbine has four overs peed events until it sustained minor damage. Good morning folks, I am here to supervise the tune up of the control system. Operations should not have been operating the equipment. After they cleared the tags and energized the equipment, the next step was to adjust the reset and gain on the controller. This was followed dynamic electronic testing. Then steam is applied and we hope the mechanical response is as expected. The night shift put steam on the turbine without reading the procedure. In this case, the reset and gain settings were still at zero because the tune up had not started.