And then it was gone

A day after we posted a link to the blog on local call-in shows, the thing vanished.

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S-92 track log

From flightaware.com, the track log for CHI91.

Times shown are Eastern Daylight Savings time.  To convert to local (Newfoundland and Labrador) time add one hour thirty minutes.

This data, which appears to come from Gander air traffic control centre,  must be taken as preliminary and may be inaccurate.  The Transportation Safety Board investigation will use data from several sources, including the onboard flight data recorders, to develop a complete and accurate picture of the flight.

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TSB S-92 summary: the media briefings thus far

Since taking over the Cougar S-92 crash, the Transportation Safety Board has been providing more details on the incident through regular media briefings.

Over the weekend, TSB officials described some of the debris recovered initially. It included:

• a sponson (one of the large structures on the side of the aircraft)
• the rear cargo door
• an interior bulkhead (likely the bulkhead separating the passenger compartment from the rear cargo area)
• one of the emergency escape doors
• both parts of a forward access door.  The top section latch was in the open position was in the open position;  the bottom half was latched.

The fuselage is sitting on the bottom in approximately 178 metres of water.  The tail boom has separated from the fuselage but remains near the main part of the aircraft. The fuselage is resting on one side.

As of Tuesday 17 Mar 09, all bodies had been recovered from the aircraft. The recovery process is indicated in the image, at left from the Globe and Mail.  The image uses a drawing of the wrong helicopter type.  It is labelled S-92 but the aircraft pictured is a PUMA.

The aircraft appears to have suffered a hard impact, significantly harder than first assumed. As a TSB official described it:

"It's been broken up somewhat," he said.

"It's cracked up quite a bit. The cockpit area in particular has been quite damaged."

However, he noted, the helicopter's cabin structure, from where the bodies are being recovered, is "somewhat together."

Unedited video of the TSB news conferences are available at cbc.ca/nl.

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Science minister a creationist?

Now that would be nutty even in a nutty federal administration.

Not quite as nutty as having a cabinet minister who has nothing better to do that write letters to the editor, but still, pretty nutty.

People in Labrador, of course, won’t help but notice that all the big projects supposedly being “advanced’ by the provincial government in Labrador  - according to cabinet minister John Hickey  - depend on federal funding.

Meanwhile in related nutty news, still no word on how Hickey’s defamation suit is going.  Hickey sued the former leader of the opposition for remarks said by someone else, namely Hickey’s own party leader, Premier Danny Williams.

Maybe Hickey has federal aspirations, what with his attacks on incumbent member of parliament, Todd Russell.  Based on the standards set by the current science minister, Hickey would have a bright future in any Harper government. 

He fits right in.

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Final seven recovered

The remains of all sixteen of the missing from Cougar 91 have been recovered and returned to St. John’s.

Only one person on board the flight survived.  He remains in hospital but is reportedly making a steady recovery.

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Do they have anything of value to contribute?

Please. Someone. Explain this:

[St. John.s city councillor Tom] Hann admitted he didn’t know enough about search and rescue to say whether or not a faster response would have made a difference to the outcome of last week’s crash.

“I can’t answer that question,” he said. “That’s an issue for the experts. But the only issue that I see is that, you know, I think it’s needed. Everybody says it is needed, but nothing has been done.”

The guy says he doesn’t know enough to anything of consequence at all and yet he makes a proposal to do something to deal with a situation about which he admits his own fundamental ignorance.

On top of that, he claims the idea of having a search and rescue unit in St. John’s is an issue best left to “experts” but at the same time, he wants to push this idea because “everybody” says it is needed.

So who are the experts he’s talking about?

Here’s a thought:  maybe Tom can get together with Scott Simms and discuss relocating the search and rescue unit in Scott’s riding to St. John’s.

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Tom, don’t expect to get a job with Sikorsky sales update:  Just listening to Tom Hann on a night-time talk show doing an excellent job of demonstrating what he doesn’t know.  Tom is familiar with these subjects since  - as Tom put it  - “I’ve flown the Cormorant.”  Flown one or flown in one? 

Anyway.

Newsflash, Tom -  Both the Cormorant (EH-101) and the S-92 are built to fly search and rescue as well as transport and other missions. Next time you get a chance to talk to anyone federally you might ask about the new navy helicopter, the Cyclone, which is…wait for it…the S-92 in another guise.  When it comes in service, it will be providing SAR back-up for the Cormorants.

Makes you wonder where Tom stood on the cancellation of the EH-101s in 1993?  It’s a bit like listening to Scott Simms asking where the Cormorant back-up was while the entire squadron from Gander conducted a squadron full deployment exercise last week. 

The back up was provided by Cougar. Here’s some video of a Cougar SAR training mission. You’ll find a few other vids of this from different angles.

Once this is all over, Rick Burt and the people at Cougar need to take Tom and his friends up for a spin and introduce them to the superlative staff flying SAR missions for the company.

This won’t be pretty

Funny yes, but not pretty.

Is that you, Bas? is a new  blog dedicated to local talk radio callers.

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And speaking of funny, not pretty…

nottawa’s observations on one local talk radio host.

 

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When tragedy becomes abuse

Not surprisingly, an e-mail showed up on Thursday ranting about what the writer – a former journalist – called “asshole questions.”

It wasn’t surprising because more than a few people have been appalled since Thursday last week at an entire line of innuendo drawn by one reporter at a news conference on the Cougar helicopter crash and then turned into a self-referential pile of garbage that evening on a VOCM call-in show.

Self-referential refers to the arrogant tendency of both the reporter and the call-in show host to talk about how hard this whole tragedy at sea has been for them. They didn’t lose anyone on the ill-fated Cougar helicopter flight nor did they know anyone personally, apparently.  Their grief came from having to cover the story.  The pair led off the Sunday evening edition with the same self-pity bull.

Then they turned to justifying their comments about search and rescue and what they seem to believe was the lack of search and rescue response “on Newfoundland ground.”  That’s the phrase the reporter in question likes to use. He used it, too, in that news conference not to establish the search and rescue response but to focus on the military search and rescue.

All that blather – as well as the call right afterwards from one of their former colleagues at the twice defunct newspaper The Independent - was a clue that the pair have been under some pressure  likely from their colleagues in the local journalist community for a string of not only what the e-mail correspondent aptly described but the commentary that flowed from the questions.

The details of this incident were known on the day of the crash. One of the details known from the outset is that a search and rescue helicopter was available at the time of the crash and responded to the scene.  According to the timeline produced in the Telegram from the rescue co-ordination centre in Halifax, the helicopter arrived on scene 72 minutes after the ditching and recovered the one survivor in the water.

One must wonder on what basis anyone would morph the simple facts as established clearly and unequivocally into some sort of line of inquiry about the CH-149s. 

The only obvious reason to do so would be if there was any indication that this had an impact on events, but that doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny. With the information presented at the third news conference on the day of the crash – the one at which the string of questions on the Cormorants started – it was pretty clear that none but the two bodies (one fatality and one survivor) identified were spotted by the very first aircraft on scene.  That PAL King Air arrived some 25 minutes after impact, more than 40 minutes before the first search and rescue helicopter  - from COUGAR search and rescue (SAR)  - arrived on the scene.

With that established – as it was from the outset - there is no legitimate reason to persist in the blatant misrepresentations that have taken place since Thursday.

Search and rescue aircraft were available immediately at the time of the crash.  The others – Cormorants belonging not to  coast guard but to the Department of National Defence – were on a training exercise. They were pulled off the exercise and despatched to the crash site.  They arrived on the scene 18 minutes after the COUGAR SAR flight. [Corrected:  original stated difference in time as 38 mins.  Cougar on scene 1110 hrs.  Cormorant on scene 1128 hrs local]

This entire thread cannot be blithely dismissed as part of the normal hard work done by responsible journalists.  Responsible journalists did their jobs on Thursday and they have done it since then on this story.  They asked hard questions but they asked relevant questions based on the information readily available. They didn’t get into the Cormorant angle, one suspects, because the unspeakable truth of this incident was evident to them all from the outset.

Responsible journalists didn’t use the questions and answers to create an entirely false impression, as it evidently has, in a group of people who have been misled in their grief.  One of those people, the mayor of a town hit hard by the tragedy, turned up on national radio repeating the false information he had received and trusted.

Even as hideous as all that is, the self-referential pair can’t be held responsible for another despicable crowd who have taken the false information – no search and rescue helicopters in Newfoundland at the time of the crash – and put it to some more demented purpose. Far too many people have taken this false information and turned it  into part of their political agenda. One of those callers turned up just now on the same call-in show spewing his particular brand of venom.  Not once did the host try and sort the fellow out.

People who know how news conferences work know how information can change in an unfolding event such as this one. They can note, for example, how some details change.  In the second newser, some locator beacons were detected initially.  In the third one, it sounds like none at all were detected.  The correct detail will emerge.

That’s not what we are looking at in the case of the thread about SAR response. The details were already clear from the outset.  Some people have misrepresented them, inexplicably and disgustingly.

This sort of misrepresentation amounts to an abuse. 

It tortures the families of the victims of the crash by suggesting a hope which is false. 

This attack – and that’s what it amounts to – tortures the men and women of the search and rescue services.  103 Search and Rescue Squadron flies twice the national average in SAR missions.  Hercules from 413 Squadron join them far out to sea.  They all train hard and fly hard and risk their lives in weather when the rest of us are huddled by a fire safe at home. They do it to save the souls whose lives are at risk in the harsh North Atlantic. When lives are lost, as in this case, they will inevitably search their souls to ensure that all that could be done was done.

This attack abuses the men and women of Cougar. The company has an exemplary safety record.  The company has such a record because every single employee is committed to safe service.  Over 48,000 accident free flying hours don’t happen without such a level of personal commitment. The company’s crews also fly search and rescue services every bit as good and every bit as dangerous as the work done by 103 and its sister squadrons.

These misrepresentations abuse the members of the public who are shocked by the tragedy and who share in the grief of those who have lost loved ones. They are misled into believing things which are not true.

In a time of tragedy, it is hard to imagine more monstrous abuses. The tortures will continue until someone decides to put an end to them. Maybe a wise editorial hand needs to rest on someone’s shoulder.

In the meantime,  all that the rest of us can do is hope that somewhere in the midst of their self-absorption, the perpetrators of the abuse can realize the harm they are doing.

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Atlantic Osprey

Background information, including a photograph of the vessel and last reported position, via marinetraffic,com.

The position appears to be current and shows the vessel anchored after circling the crash site.

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Partial list of crash victims released

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police released a partial list of names of victims of the Cougar S-92 crash. 

Raw video of the RCMP newser is available from cbc.ca/nl.

Of the 17 victims, 12 names were released.  The other five have not been released at the request of the families. There are available at cbc.ca/nl and at The Telegram website.

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“Hard landing”: Cougar S-92 crash chronology

Adapted from The Telegram:  [BP notes in square brackets.]

Here's a brief timeline of the events of March 12 when Cougar Helicopters flight 91 crashed into the ocean. [The tick tock on this incident was pretty well established by mid-afternoon on the day of the crash, based on official sources.  Initial timings were converted from ZULU to Atlantic time in error but the sequence and other details were known publicly.  Times below are Newfoundland Daylight Savings Time (Universal Time/ZULU less 3.5), presented in 24 hour format.]

0940 local- Mayday call from the Cougar Helicopters flight. [According to the COUGAR website this scheduled flight launched at 0900 with destination given as “SRF-HIB”.  That translates as Seas Rose FPSO and Hibernia.   According to a company spokesperson on Friday, the pilot had indication of “zero oil pressure” in the main rotor gearbox and immediately began a return to base.

MAYDAY is a call indicated an emergency with imminent or immediate threat to the aircraft.  The fact that the pilot declared a MAYDAY reflects the seriousness of the issue and also may reflect the tight safety protocols of the company.  Were the issue of less significance, the pilot would have likely declared PAN PAN PAN which denotes a major issue but not one carrying an imminent or immediate threat.]

0948 local  - Helicopter ditches in the Atlantic 55 kilometres east of St. John's. [Position given in the CAPORS report filed the day of the crash shows it as approximately that distance from St. John’s.]

1000 local - Transportation Safety Board notified.

1012 local - Provincial Airlines ice patrol plane arrived and saw the helicopter inverted in the water. [This is a significant point to bear in mind for all subsequent discussion. The PAL aircraft  - directed to the scene as part of the SAR effort – arrived within 25 mins of ditching and reported one or two life rafts deployed, two survival suits in the water and an inverted aircraft.  Local weather has been reported as winds 20 knots with two to three metre seas.

Globe and Mail: “Of the two [people] in the water, one was observed face down. They saw no sign of flares or smoke or anyone waving from the life rafts,” he [PAL chairman Thomas Collingwood] said. “What we've learned from our crew is that they definitely had a hard landing.”

This suggests very strongly that contrary to initial rumour, the aircraft did not remain upright in the water for very long if at all.  The NTSB investigation including an analysis of flight data recorders will give a much more accurate picture, however, the initial details reported by credible observers seems clear in its implications. This also bears on questions that have been raised about the personal location transponders which reportedly did not activate.]

1034 local - Canadian Forces C-130 Hercules airplane arrived at the scene. [ From 413 Transport and Rescue Squadron, 14 Wing Greenwood Nova Scotia.]

1110 local - Cougar 61 arrived on scene, and shortly after hoisted survivor Robert Decker out of the water. Cougar flight 91 was no longer in sight. [COUGAR provides search and rescue (SAR) services.  According to official comment reported in local media, COUGAR was already tasked to provide back-up to 103 Squadron Gander while the squadron conducted training exercises near Sydney, Nova Scotia.  Even if 103 had been in Gander on 12 Mar 09, its aircraft would have been 30 mins flying time to St. John’s plus the time from St. John’s to the crash location.  COUGAR SAR was closest and arrived on scene 72 mins after ditching, if this timeline is correct.]

1128 local - The first Cormorant [CH-149] rescue helicopter arrived at the crash scene.

[Telegram] Source: Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre

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News release: C-NLOPB REACTS TO LOSS OF COUGAR FLIGHT 491

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), issued the following statement in relation to the loss of Cougar’s Flight 491 and its fifteen passengers and two crew on route from St. John’s to the Hibernia Platform and the Sea Rose FPSO.

The C-NLOPB Board and staff wish to express deepest sympathies to the families, friends and co-workers of the passengers and crew aboard Cougar’s Flight 491. This tragedy affects all who work in the offshore oil and gas sector and all of us as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Our hearts and prayers go out to them.

The C-NLOPB has been working very closely with responding agencies since the incident occurred and monitoring search and rescue efforts. The ditching of Cougar’s Flight 491 is an air accident and the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are the lead agencies in the investigation of this incident. The C-NLOPB will fully cooperate with these agencies in the investigation.

The C-NLOPB will also be an observer during the recovery operation. If there are lessons to be learned from this event for the C-NLOPB, we will ensure those lessons are implemented. T

he C-NLOPB has regulatory responsibility for safety on oil and gas facilities operating in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area. The C-NLOPB verifies that operators have appropriate safety plans in place. The guidelines for the development of the Safety Plan are on the Board’s website .

The basic safety requirements for working on an offshore oil and gas facility include:

• Successful completion of a medical exam

• Completion of a basic offshore survival course

• Personnel must use certified personal protective equipment and apparel when working offshore

• Also, personnel are provided with a flight suit which must be worn during transport.

The C-NLOPB is committed to overseeing offshore oil and gas activities to verify that safety is the first priority in offshore operations.

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S-92 crash links

For those looking to keep track of the reporting on this story, here are the two best local sources:

1.  CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

• Raw video
• Comprehensive web page, including links to raw video, others news coverage, a live feed of the news conferences associated with the incident and a live online forum.

2.  The Telegram: the province’s largest daily newspaper has been updating regularly with short snippets in the daily news section [rss link]. They also have some of their “Top Story” coverage available as well online [rss link].  There is also some coverage in the “Local News” section [rss link]

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Bullshit

Williams has been in contact with the Prime Minister and the province's federal representative Peter MacKay keeping them up to date on what's happening on the ground.

Extract from a voice of the cabinet minister “news” report

The search and rescue resources from Greenwood, Nova Scotia and Gander, Newfoundland currently deployed in response to the Cougar S-92 crash are from the Department of National Defence.

The Minister of National Defence is Peter MacKay.

He receives a daily briefing from the Canadian Forces on these sorts of things and can be briefed more often as necessary from people in direct contact with the pilots in the planes.  Heck, Pete can speak to them himself from his desk as they fly above the ocean if he wants.

The coast guard, transport department and all the other entirely federal agencies working on this tragedy report to – wait for it – the federal government.

The defence minister and the prime minister have access to detailed information on this incident in far greater detail and in a far broader scope than just about anyone else.

So what exactly did the Premier have to say that would keep the people with all the information first hand “up to date” with what’s happening on the ground?

Maybe the reporter(s) curious about the water depth at 47 26 05N 51 56 58W might add that to their list of questions to pose. Either that or someone could ask VOCM to check their understanding again of what the Premier actually said.

Either way, one of them is full of it.

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Upright in a hurricane

This is raw video of what appears to be a sales demonstration of the S-92 for a Hungarian audience. This one is in military configuration, hence the H-92 reference.

At about the 2:41 mark, there is reference to flotation equipment on the aircraft both at the tail and the nose which is designed to keep the aircraft upright in a ditching.  The pilot (?) makes a comment about keeping the aircraft upright even in a hurricane.

The internal configuration for this aircraft is for military use.  Hence the demonstration refers to a crew of four and emphasises the ease with which the internal arrangement can be switched out to accommodate a purely cargo mission.

The civilian passenger configuration provides 19 seats in rows of three, set up with two on one side and one on the other. Passengers face forward, whereas in this military configuration, anyone in the main cabin sits with his or her back to the fuselage wall.

Reported weather conditions at the site at the time of crash were  two to three metre seas and winds at 20 knots.

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Gearbox oil pressure implicated in S-92 crash

Cougar official Rick Burt, interviewed by CBC Radio the morning after the crash, indicated the aircraft commander declared a MAYDAY after getting a gauge indication of  “zero oil pressure” in the main gearbox.

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Related:

1.  CADOR excerpt on CHI91 incident.

2.  Previous S-92 airworthiness directives involving the main gearbox and oil pressure issues.

CADORS 2009A0212

From the Transport Canada’s incident report on the Cougar S-92 crash:

CHI91, S92, enroute from St. John’s (CYYT) to the Hibernia Oil Platform at 12:15Z, declared MAYDAY due to a main gear box oil pressure problem and requested to return to St. John’s. Air Traffic Control cleared the flight as requested. At 12:25Z aircraft ditched at position 472605N515658W.

The time reported here for the MAYDAY is 0945 hrs local, not 0910 hrs as reported in an evening media briefing. The ditching time is given as 0955 hrs local.

This is an initial report and may be subject to change.

Timeshift update:  The ZULU times are apparently correct.  Initial reports came from the SAR co-ordination centre based in Halifax which initially converted ZULU to Atlantic time out of habit.

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If a little knowledge…

is a dangerous thing, reporter Brian Callahan’s comments this evening about search and rescue response to the Cougar S-92 accident is proving what you get from complete ignorance.

Morning after update:  Asking questions is one thing.  Making accusations directly or by innuendo is quite another.

Questions about search and rescue in the aftermath of the crash aren’t confined to Callahan.  One caller to CBC Radio yesterday afternoon and again the morning and a radio talk show host on another network tried to turn SAR into some kind of  “us” versus “them”, Newfoundland versus the mainland political racket.

“Irresponsible” would be the most polite word for these sorts of ill-informed or ill-considered comments.  Obnoxious might be a better word for it.

The North Atlantic is a cruel and difficult place.  Working offshore in any industry is inherently dangerous and even with good training and excellent standards and equipment tragedies will occur. That doesn’t mean we accept the tragedies;  it merely means we have to always bear in mind that reality.

The people who work SAR – private sector, coast guard and the air force – are highly trained and they work tirelessly to provide the very best search and rescue service that is humanly possible.

The ones I know are anything but as cavalier and irresponsible as the people making the comments about SAR over the past 24 hours. 

 

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Sikorsky S-92

1.  Australia:  Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/4 dated 2/2007 re: tail gearbox.

2. Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/3 dated 2/2007 re: main rotor gearbox. Mandates replacement of main gearbox housing at 2700 hours time-in-service.

3.  Australia: Airworthiness directive AD/S-92/2: “This AD requires replacing the MGB lubrication/scavenge pump vespel spline adapters before further flight, and thereafter, replacing them at certain intervals”.

4.  Sikorsky signs gearbox maintenance deal with VIHAG, Cougar parent.

5.  The S-92 was a candidate to replace the Sea King in the role of Marine Corps presidential helicopter transport.  it lost out to the Merlin/Cormorant under the designation US-101.

6.  The Canadian defence department selected the S-92 to replace the aging Sea King fleet.  The program is behind schedule.

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