Safety alert after 'fuel leak' on North Sea helicopter

A NORTH Sea helicopter was at the centre of a full-scale emergency yesterday – only five days after an offshore helicopter ditched into the sea with two pilots and 16 passengers on board.

In the latest incident, fire, police and other emergency services on Shetland were alerted after the crew of a helicopter travelling from the Brent oilfield reported a possible fuel leak on board.

The Sikorsky S-92, operated by Bristow Helicopters, of Aberdeen, landed safely at Scatsta Airport on Shetland shortly after 10:30am.

The helicopter, with 19 passengers and two crew on board, had been on a routine flight after pick-ups at the Brent Charlie and Brent Alpha platforms in the Shell-operated Brent field, bound for Scatsta, when the emergency alert began.

A spokesman for Shetland Coastguard said: "The pilot reported a fuel leak. We put our helicopter in Sumburgh on stand-by, but when we got the call, there was only two minutes to landing.

"The airport then informed us that the aircraft had landed safely."

A spokeswoman for Bristow said: "Engineers inspected the aircraft and confirmed there had been no leak, but a discrepancy in a monitoring system."

Meanwhile, the fuselage of the Bond-operated Super Puma helicopter, which ditched in the North Sea last Wednesday, began its journey south by road yesterday, bound for the headquarters of the Air Accident Investigation Branch in Farnborough, Hampshire.

The missing tail boom, containing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, was recovered from the seabed yesterday.