RELATIVES of North Sea helicopter-crash victims have backed calls
for Super Puma aircraft to be withdrawn from service permanently after 14 people died in an accident off Norway.
An online petition is calling on the Civil Aviation Authority to withdraw the Super Puma EC225 — which serves the UK oil industry — due to the model’s history of crashes.
Oil worker Iain Stuart, 41, of Laurencekirk, Aberdeenshire, was among the victims of Friday’s accident near Bergen.
Mr Stuart, who worked for oilfield services company Halliburton, was en route to a platform.
Read more: Norway helicopter crash made no 'mayday call'
All Super Puma helicopter flights to UK offshore platforms have since been suspended as investigations into what happened continue.
Among those who are backing the petition is Caroline Doyle, whose 57-year-old father Raymond, of Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, died in a Super Puma helicopter crash in April 2009, 12 miles off Peterhead.
In 2013, there were 13 AS332 L2s, one AS332 L1 and 19 EC225 helicopters serving the UK oil and gas industry.
Ms Doyle said: “My dad was on the Super Puma that crashed on April 1, 2009. I have no faith in these aircraft, those who manufacture them, those who operate them, nor the governing bodies who are supposed to supervise these companies.”
The petition, which has collected 14,000 signatures in a matter of days, states: “We call on the CAA to put the lives of offshore oil workers and the pilots before vested interests, and revoke the air-worthiness certificates for this aircraft. Failure to do this will result in more needless deaths.”
Karen Ritchie, whose nephew Stuart Wood, 27, of Aberdeen, was also killed in the 2009 crash, said: People should feel safe when they are travelling to their place of work, and this is not a safe mode of transport.”
Mr Wood’s mother, Audrey, said: “Seven years on and my life has stood still.
“I would not wish this heartache on my worst enemy. All variants of Puma should be removed from the oil industry.
“Men should feel safe travelling to work, not fear if they will ever see their loved ones at home again.”
Neil Ritchie, of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, a survivor of a Super Puma crash near Shetland in August 2013, also supported the campaign.
A row erupted over the lifting of a Super Puma flight ban over
Britain following that Shetland crash after it emerged accident investigators had not ruled out that a technical problem played a part in the disaster.
The AAIB, which led the inquiry into what caused the accident, said in the aftermath of the crash that the CAA could not conclude from its initial findings the crash was not caused by an airworthiness or technical problem.
The revelation sparked a row over the handling of Super Puma safety, with some union officials fearing the oil industry was bringing pressure to bear to get the helicopters in the air too early, and before a thorough investigation knew what caused the fatal crash.
European safety regulators had by then already come under fire after it emerged they declared the Super Pumas airworthy weeks before the Shetland tragedy.
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