The North Sea oil helicopter crews who faced 'blazing hell'

There had been a sudden thump – nothing too alarming – then a call to action. 

It had taken him and his co-pilot just minutes to reach the deck of the multi-function support vessel Tharos and to fire up the engines of their Sikorsky S76 helicopter. 

Normally they would be shuttling offshore workers to and fro; an airborne taxi service for the booming North Sea oil industry. 

But on that night, they would be thrown into the heat of the world's worst offshore oil disaster; powerless observers to an unfolding horror. 

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“The black smoke quickly increased in volume and started to dwarf the rig, giant that it was, cloaking the fire that was rapidly consuming the structure,” recalls Captain Church in a new book which charts the role of helicopters and their crews in the pursuit of North Sea oil.

“It was a crushing disappointment that there was nothing we could do for those on board, many of whom we had flown over the years to and from the rigs.”

The horrific events of 35 years ago claimed the lives of 165 men on board the Piper Alpha rig, and two rescue workers who perished when their vessel became trapped beneath it. 

Thirty bodies were never recovered, while many of the 61 who escaped and survived suffered horrendous injuries. 

Peter Saxton (Image: Contributed)

The tragic scene that confronted Captain Church that night in July 1988 is recalled in ‘Helicopters and North Sea Oil’, a new book which features firsthand accounts of the pilots and crews serving Scotland’s oil industry. 

Spanning early days when safety and training were still in their infancy, it recalls daring rescues and life-saving medical evacuations in raging seas and violent storms. 

While alongside amazing feats of heroism are equally astonishing tales of near misses and averted accidents, often tackled with stiff upper lip humour which left some struggling with what now is recognised as post traumatic disorders, nightmares, flashbacks and memory loss.

No episode would compare to the horrors of Piper Alpha, now, says, Captain Church filed “in the part of the brain marked ‘do not disturb’.”

He and fellow pilot, Ivor Griffiths, had taken off expecting to find a small fire and to deal with a possible evacuation. 

Instead, unable to land on the rig’s helipad due to the thick smoke – and even if they had, they would surely have died there - all they could do was record the unfolding horror.

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“The whole platform was, within a short time, engulfed by flames which were by then utterly uncontainable, and which were shooting hundreds of feet into the air,” he recalls. 

“It was then that the heat became so intense that the Piper started melting. 

“Huge girders and the metal skeleton were sweating themselves to death in a parody of perspiration. 
“They were dripping into the sea as the fire melted the solid steel, plunging beads of white-hot metal into the water.

“The whole sky was lit up by one enormous firework, and both the sky and sea had turned orange. 
“We finally reported over the radio that the platform was completely engulfed in flame: this was barely an hour since we had first become airborne.” 

In the days that followed, helicopters played an important role in the respectful recovery of bodies, ferrying fire experts charged with dampening the blaze to the scene and then teams tasked with establishing what went wrong. 

It was all part of the service in the epic enterprise of supporting North Sea oil extraction. 

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And while their work continues today on a much lesser scale, moves to develop the untapped Rosebank oil and gas field off Shetland raises the prospect of a new era for helicopters and their crews. 

RAF officer Peter Saxton, who has compiled the book, was among many military pilots to join British Airways Helicopters in the mid-1970s, as the North Sea oil industry burst into life. 

He recalls a feverish time when oil prices were soaring, safety, training methods and equipment were still evolving, and both pilots and their helicopters were being pushed to extremes. 

“We had these machines which were optimised originally for military use, which had to be ‘civilianised’ and made to do what the oil industry wanted.

“That was an interesting process,” he says, “One issue was the need for a massive extension in range. Normally helicopters are short range and that had to change because we were piloting up to the Brent Field. 

“And they needed to be made ice-proof because North Sea winters can be pretty vicious.”

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There was pressure on helicopter crews to push harder and faster. 

“Safety was being done in retrospect. Everything was being done ‘on the run’,” he says. 

“We were very fortunate for this to be happening in Scotland where there were good harbours, access to a large number of trained people, and to have expert helicopter pilots from the British armed forces.

“But we were operating at ranges that were not normal, that were getting longer and in icy conditions that helicopters do not like. 

“There was tension between the people who wanted to get the capabilities of the helicopters absolutely maximised and the people like myself who were counselling caution at the time.” 

One contentious issue was whether the North Sea workhorse, Sikorsky S61 helicopters, could be flown without cabin attendants and with just one pilot, freeing up space for passengers. 

Not surprisingly, crews and pilots pushed back, warning such a move would be disastrous in an emergency. 

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Other battles appeared on a smaller scale but equally important. “In my early days both we and our passengers wore shirt sleeves to work on the flight deck, whilst flying to the rigs,” recalls Peter.

A ditching in October 1977 when the crew of three escaped but suffering from hyperthermia, sparked a rethink and move to equip all on board with immersion suits. 

Training also improved: flight simulators for flight crews emerged, and ‘dunker’ tanks to equip passengers and crew with the impact of ditching in freezing water. 

While most helicopter trips were short and free of drama, others involved winching people between vessels at varying hours of day and night in equally varying weather conditions. While haar and cumulo-nimbus clouds brought lighting, turbulence, snow and ice, were constant threats during colder months. 

As well as ferrying workers, the crews also provided life-saving medical evacuationsm, some involving divers who had to be plucked from the ocean bed and transported in pressurised ‘tubes’ to hospital in Aberdeen.

And there were many search and rescue missions, sometimes at extreme range and in difficult weather. 

Such as the dramatic MS Finneagle rescue in October 1980, when an RAF Search and Rescue (SAR) team defied a horrendous storm to winch to safety all 22 people from a burning vessel packed with potentially explosive cargo. 

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And the remarkable rescue in September 1977 of a trawler crew after their boat ran aground on the notorious Vee Skerries rocks of the Northwest coast of the Shetland Islands. 

“It’s something of an irony that of all the hundreds of flights you undertake in a flying career, few are particularly memorable because most go well,” adds Peter.

“The memorable ones are usually those where something unusual occurs, and there is nothing more memorable than a life-threatening incident.”

He recalls flying a Super Puma AS332L helicopter in May 1987, with 17 passengers on board bound for a rig 35 miles northeast of Unst when there was a sudden ‘bang’.

To make matters worse, thick cloud meant he had been relying on the helicopter’s instruments to fly – and two were no longer working. 

“Unst airport was now some 35 nautical miles distant, but there was a big chance we wouldn’t make it,” he recalls.

With a severely damaged tail rotor and failed instruments, the helicopter risked ditching into the turbulent water below. 

Incredibly, the wounded chopper made it to Unst Island’s airfield, where favourable wind conditions meant he was able to land it safely.  

“Never were two gas turbines shut down so rapidly,” Peter recalls. 

He says his memory has blanked out much of the traumatic events. 

“I do remember an engineer telling me that he reckoned we only had a few minutes flying time left before the aircraft came apart,” he adds. 

“And I remember thinking, ‘A few minutes left is just fine by me’.”

Helicopters and North Sea Oil is published by Pen and Sword Books.