Whoops........

[tut]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-n ... d-28936819

tut

[kerryxeg]

Easily done, all our platforms look the same - small deck and a jack-up. There are plenty measures to avoid this, it'll be interesting to hear outcome of the investigation.

I was a bit surprised to find this on the front page of the P&J with a small side column on the independence debate. Classic bit of North East journalism.

[Danny T30TUS]

Easily done, yes if it was two jack - ups within a few miles of each other. In this instance however this is a truly remarkable error. The buzzard field is the largest in the North Sea and currently has 3 fixed platforms and quite often has a jack - up hovering over the wellhead platform conducting drilling or workover operations. So you could forgive the pilot if he landed on the living quarter heli deck instead of the heli deck on the jack - up.

My only thoughts at this stage are that the pilots were new and had never flown to the buzzard before. On approach to the buzzard it almost resembles a small town "It's massive" In comparison to the ensco 120.

I look forward to the investigation results.

Danny

[neil]

The buzzard field is the largest in the North Sea and currently has 3 fixed platforms and quite often has a jack up

Is Buzzard not up to 4 fixed platforms now? Either way not an easy mistake to make....

[Danny T30TUS]

Could easily be up to 4 platforms now. Been 4 years since I was on it.

Definitely not an easy mistake to make.

Danny

[mxvx]

Exactly, he was 9 nautical miles from where he should of landed.

[kerryxeg]

Golden eagle has 2 platforms a jackup, a flotel at it and a semi next to it, so just as busy as Buzzard at the moment. Our flight routings are usually to multiple installations and sometimes change.

[tut]

It's because there can be confusion if semis are close together that you have to double or triple check, especially on an infield run where you are dropping off pax at several locations.

In this case though the correct destination was nine miles away from where they landed, so both GPS and radar would be showing that. In the old days I was flying single pilot most of the time, but now every flight is two crew, so one pilot is flying the aircraft, the other using the radio and navigating, so the work load is halved. Obviously mistakes can be made, but with regulations the way they are nowadays this should not happen.

If they are fortunate they may get away with a demotion and retraining, as opposed to losing their jobs.

tut