Eurocopter have a major uphill PR battle ahead of them, for certain. Since the Shetland fatal accident on Friday – less than three days ago as this is written – a Facebook page “Destroy the Super Pumas” has gained over 28,000 followers.

While it is clearly not something people in the aviation industry would support, we need to be mindful of the offshore workers who have relatively little aviation understanding and how they are reacting. Here are four extracts from what would appear to be a balanced response from an offshore worker on a well-known UK-based aviation forum

• what they see is an increased frequency of accidents and incidents, mainly with super puma variants, 2 in the last 4 years with loss of life, and the others we have been very fortunate in the conditions when the aircraft ditched.
• if you think they have an excellent safety record and are good, then you have to convince the offshore workforce – because it does not look like that to them.
• From the offshore workforce point of view, it is sensible to ground all pumas until we know what caused this crash – we should already have a good idea from the pilots, although detailed analysis and examination will be required – and the aircraft needs to be recovered first to get to the flight recorders.
• please don’t forget a lot of us knew some of the people that lost their lives. I knew someone on the 2009 crash and the crash on Friday – they were work colleagues, and we spend a large part of our lives living and working together. One of the reasons emotions run high, and unfortunately emotions overule sense immediately after loss of life.

We note that Eurocopter made a PR appointment in Aberdeen in response to the EC225 difficulties. No doubt he has his work cut out, if he didn’t already

Ben Haverdee – HeliHub.com

[file photo]