CBC News reported Friday night that Cougar helicopters search and rescue helicopter can’t work at night.
The story isn’t online.
The front-end of the story makes it sound like a winch problem but the supposed culprit is the lack of an auto-hover capability. Apparently Cougar helicopters didn’t buy that feature.
Curious, given that the company knew when they bought the aircraft they had to provide a search and rescue (SAR) capability.
Curiouser too given that Sikorsky markets the S-92 as a SAR helicopter complete with forward-looking infra-red radar.
Now while the locals are using this as fuel for their cause to get a search and rescue squadron in St. John’s, the real issue here is starting to look more and more like Cougar and the offshore oil companies making conscious decisions to live up to the letter of the offshore board regulatory requirement but not the spirit of it.
After all, if they were genuinely concerned for worker safety, wouldn’t they find find the few extra bucks to buy a dedicated search and rescue helicopter that can do what needs to be done for their workers?
Incidentally, has anyone noted the number of times the provincial government – either the Premier or his natural resources/deputy premier stand-in – have tried to deny the government has any responsibility for offshore safety?
Funny that given that:
- the provincial government regulates the offshore through the board, and,
- as one of those offshore oil companies we talked about a minute ago with employees at White Rose and eventually Hebron, they have a direct responsibility - morally if nothing else - for ensuring their workers are safe.
It sure isn’t very comforting when the one organization that has responsibility for worker safety through not one but two of its activities tries to deny it has any responsibility at all for anything.
-srbp-