In Nigeria, ChevronTexaco has announced a helicopter belonging to Pan African Airline, which was on a medical mission to extract an injured rig worker to Part Harcourt from an offshore rig – the Transocean Sedco Energy – contracted by ChevronTexaco affiliate Star Ultra Deep at the Nsiko field in OPL 249, disappeared five minutes after leaving the rig.
The helicopter carried four: an American pilot, a Nigerian co-pilot, a Nigerian emergency services worker and the Nigerian worker; the latter two coming from the Sedco Energy. They are listed as missing but believed to be dead.
In a statement ChevronTexaco Government and Public Affairs GM Sola Omole said, “Contact with the helicopter was lost at 2:30 am, five minutes after it took off from a drilling rig.”
“The company has mobilised a search-and-rescue mission involving five boats, three helicopters and a fixed wing aircraft to examine the flight path of the missing helicopter. The mission is on-going and more resources will be deployed if needed,” added Omole.
The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency SAR team has already found patches of aviation fuel on the sea; an indicator of where the helicopter may have crashed.
According to ChevronTexaco’s MD for Nigerian Mid-Africa Business unit, Jay Pryor, the company had already alerted the relevant Nigerian authorities and the US Embassy, as well as the families of the missing crew.
“Our hearts go out to the families of those on board the helicopter. Our company will spare no efforts and resources in assisting our service companies to locate their employees on the missing helicopter,” said Pryor.
In Brazil, Petrobras ROVs have managed to recover the bodies of five victims of a helicopter crash, which went down on 22 July, in water depths of around 1,100 feet in the country’s oil-producing Campos Basin.
Four of the bodies were still trapped inside the cabin. The fifth body was found on the seabed near the wreckage of the chopper.
The recovery of the five now means the bodies of six victims have been recovered. The helicopter was carrying 11 employees from private firms which had been contracted by the state-owned oil company to an offshore platform.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the US Coast Guard had been searching for a missing helicopter pilot who issued a mayday on 17 July at 9.37am. The unidentified pilot was returning from an oil rig 115 miles south of Cameron, Louisiana.
The pilot worked for Rotorcraft Leasing and was piloting a Bell 206 L1 helicopter.
In a statement issued then the Coast Guard said, “The Federal Aviation Authority notified the Coast Guard at 9:45 a.m., and shortly thereafter, Coast Guard Air Station Houston launched an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew to search.”
“The helicopter crew found a debris field of helicopter wreckage at 11:52 am,” it added.
Despite the fact the Dolphin crew, a boat crew from Coast Guard Station Sabine and Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane were assisted by four helicopters from Petroleum Helicopters Inc and an unidentified offshore supply vessel, the pilot was never found.
