As we have been predicting, Clydeport’s owner, John Whittaker and Peel Ports, Continue reading
Tag Archives: east coast
Renewable energy: capacity and technology is there but…
(updated below on 17th December) … where is the infrastructure – the investment in the infrastructure? Continue reading
All18 survive as helicopter ditches on approach to platform on Etap Field off Scottish North Sea coast
The RAF received its first report of a helicopter with 18 on board ditching in the North Sea at 6:43 p.m. It was a Super Puma ditching about 120 miles east of Aberdeen as it approached an offshore platform in the ETAP field.
The RAF’s aeronautical rescue coordination center at RAF Kinloss was providing helicopter assistance to the Aberdeen Coast Guard. One RAF helicopter and one civilian helicopter went to the scene and two more civilian helicopters joined them there, with another RAF helicopter in support.
9.30pm UPDATE: It is not known whether or not the pilot had time to make a mayday call but it is now known that all 18 on board have been picked up. James Lyon, assistant controller at RAF Kinloss, says: ‘We have been picking up beacons from their lifejackets… Two aircraft are on the scene’. Three have been taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and and the others are being brought back to the city by a fast rescue boat.
Thursday 19th February UPDATE: Visibility is said to heva been down to half a mile and the helicopter was in view of the platform when it hit the water. The ditched helicopter, said to be missing its tail boom, is reported to have sat upright in the water because of its flotation bags. This made escape a lot easier.
The rescue was more difficult because it took place in darkness and with a cloud base lower then the platform’s deck. There were so many rescue units in the area that a mid-air helicopter collision was a real risk. An RAF Nimrod coordinated movements and acted successfully to defend against this possibility. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is launching an investigation into the accident and is sending nine people to Aberdeen today.
The First Minister, Alex Salmond has thanked the rescue services for their successful efforts to avert ‘that could have been a terrible tragedy’.
Red distress flare mischief leads to pointless Oban Lifeboat launch on 1st February
Oban’s RNLI lifeboat, Mora Edith Macdonald, was called out on Sunday 1st February at 19.03. Members of the public were reporting seeing a red flare in Oban Bay.
The lifeboat crew searched the bay thoroughly for an hour. This required the use of illuminating white parachute flares, search lights and night vision equipment.
Coastguards assisted from the shore but nothing was found. The Lifeboat was re-fuelled and ready for service again at 20.20.
It is thought that the flare was illegally let off from the shoreline in the Dunollie area. This sort of shout is, unfortunately part and parcel of the busy professional life of Scotland’s busiest lifeboat.
Flares are for emergency use only. There are different flares for different circumstances:
- Orange smoke flares and red parachute flares are used as distress signals. Orange smoke is a daylight distress signal. The smoke hangs thickly in a cloud close to the stricken boat. Red parachute flares are used at night and, in good conditions, are visible for a range of thirty miles.
- White parachute flares are used in darkness for illuminating the sea area in the vicinity of a distress flare
Flares have a variety of shapes and of activation mechanisms. Reading an instruction sheet makes it sound simple. It feels quite different when they’re in your hand and you have to let them off successfully. It feels even more different when you may only have one hand free in an emergency situation, storm-tossed or sinking, at risk of physical danger and afraid.
For these reasons, it is clearly important for sailors to have the chance to find out what using flares is like. Flares prior to their expiry date may be used legally by coastguards and other rescue service personnel for exactly this sort of demonstration purpose.
When these qualified personnel plan test and demonstration firings, they notify the police and, in this area, Clyde Coastguard, well in advance, They supply the proposed time and location of the demonstration. They also notify these authorities again five minutes before the start of the exercise and five minutes afterwards.
This means that within those times and from this location the rescue authorities may be reasonably sure that any public sightings of flares will be from the test firing. Before or after the notified times they can assume that any reported flares are a genuine distress signal.
The Dunollie beach firing is almost certainly an example of irresponsible casual firing. Flares are of course attractive to young people who have no idea of their explosive power on ignition. Someone was either given or took flares from their registered location and activated them – or found flares illegally dumped on the shoreline.
Once ignited, flares cannot be extinguished. They will continue to flare even if submerged in a bucket of water – or in the sea.
Firing flares casually is effectively crying wolf when there is no danger. Such behaviour is likely to lead to members of the public not bothering to report what may be a genuine distress flare, leading to potential – and avoidable – loss of life.
Most school pupils at some stage come across Robert Southey’s ballad The Inchcape Rock – a story of mischief and rough justice around what we now call the Bell Rock, off Scotland’s east coast. This conjures the sort of situation where what goes around comes around. Food for thought.