The North Sea offshore industry held a brainstorming session in late April to examine the issues it faces with helicopter flights to and from oil and gas platforms. Although the organizers emphasized that most actions in the February CAA review (known as CAP 1145) relate to accident prevention, mitigation measures–such as emergency breathing systems (EBS) and passenger size restriction–cause the more urgent problems and accounted for a significant part of the discussion.
Ten of the 61 safety measures in the CAA review relate to mitigating accident consequences, pointed out Tim Glasspool and Alan Chesterman, co-chairs of meeting organizer the Helicopter Safety Steering Group. Among the 51 prevention measures, 25 deal with operational factors and 20 with technical failures, while six are more general. Most prevention measures are longer term, such as ensuring the reliability of maintenance interventions as early as during the aircraft certification process.