| Description | A4, black and white photocopy of a hand drawn cartoon. Depicts men gathered on the helideck, waiting to board the helicopter taking them ashore and unconvinced by the new 'safety precautions'. The helicopter's tail and the radio tower in the background have tyres tied round them as impromptu crash buffers.
Author's explanation: This relates to a rather serious near miss. When helicopters lift off from the helideck they hover slightly above the deck for a few minutes while the pilot checks his controls. On this occasion the chopper drifted backwards and his tail fin hit the radio tower and was bent over at 90 degrees.
The chopper landed back on the helideck and the passengers were disembarked. Another chopper had to fly out with engineers to repair the damaged chopper which was flown ashore empty.
I believe the pilot of the damaged chopper was dismissed.
Features (left to right) Jim Greig, fitter; Dick Brown, instrument tech; Jim Kinniburgh, electrician; Brian Seidel, medic/HLO. |