CRASH COURSES AVOID DISASTER; Intense emergency training saved the lives of helicopter crash crew and passengers.Byline: By Craig McDonald EMERGENCY training saved the lives of all 18 on board the helicopter which ditched in the North Sea, experts said yesterday. The flight crew and oil workers have all taken part in intensive - and often gruelling - survival courses. Improved safety features and a little bit of luck also played a part in the safe rescue of passengers and crew. Safety standards Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory. nowadays are afar cry from decades ago, following years of campaigning by unions. Workers typically take part in three-day survival courses which are valid for four years. A one-day refresher course is undertaken every few years to ensure knowledge is up to date. Courses include emergency breathing systems, self-rescue, fire fighting fire fighting, the use of strategy, personnel, and apparatus to extinguish, to confine, or to escape from fire. Fire-Fighting Strategy Fire fighting strategy involves the following basic procedures: arriving at the scene of the fire as rapidly as , sea survival and first aid. Terrifying ter·ri·fy tr.v. ter·ri·fied, ter·ri·fy·ing, ter·ri·fies 1. To fill with terror; make deeply afraid. See Synonyms at frighten. 2. To menace or threaten; intimidate. ditching scenarios, where workers are completely submerged, take place in simulators. A safety source said: "It's all done in a simulator dubbed dub 1 tr.v. dubbed, dub·bing, dubs 1. To tap lightly on the shoulder by way of conferring knighthood. 2. To honor with a new title or description. 3. "the dunker Dunker a medium-sized scenthound, popular in Norway. It is a powerfully built dog with a short coat, pendulous ears and long tail. The short coat may be tan with black saddle and white markings, or the black may be splotched (merled). Called also Norwegian hound. " - which is a device from hell. "It's a helicopter fuselage which can be put in the water, lowered down and turned over and so on. "The guys offshore don't like it but they respect it. "The idea is to train hard and fight easy." Captain Pete Thomas, a former Royal Navy pilot who now works as a crew management consultant, said: "The decision would have been to continue to the oil rig or ditch the aircraft. "To continue might have compromised safety, so it was a good captaincy decision. He had the facilities to make a safe landing on the sea. "It was a controlled ditching - more controlled than the recent Hudson River Hudson River River, New York, U.S. Originating in the Adirondack Mountains and flowing for about 315 mi (507 km) to New York City, it was named for Henry Hudson, who explored it in 1609. Dutch settlement of the Hudson valley began in 1629. landing. It was an informed decision." Aviation expert Jim Ferguson said: "The helicopter would have only been at an altitude of a couple of hundred feet as it approached the helideck. This doesn't give you much time if something goes wrong. "It wouldn't be going very quickly - it wouldn't be doing 200mph or so that the plane which ditched on the Hudson River last month was doing. It may even be as slow as a fast walking pace - just a few knots. "But even at that speed, it would pick up an awful lot of spray as you hit the water and would effectively be landing blind. "The idea is to try and get the aircraft on to the water upright - that is, going straight ahead. If you are going sideways, it can just turn over. "These guys do an awful lot of training in simulators and so on and it appears to have paid off. "It's dark and things happen very quickly. There's no question the guys did a very good job indeed." He added: "From the initial indications there may have been a problem, to landing in the water, could have been less than a minute. "Everyone is well trained to get the liferafts out, get on to them and hope to be picked up as soon as possible." 'The guys up the front of the aircraft did a very good job indeed' CAPTION(S): IN-DEPTH TRAINING: 'The Dunker' simulator at a centre in Montrose; HAPPY LANDING: Safety features - and a bit of luck - on the Super Puma prevented a disaster |
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