Though the winter weather in the North sea offshore Norway can present many challenges, the summer weather can too. Namely fog.
In the late 1970s aircraft navigation was relatively primitive with helicopter navigation to lonely oil rigs even more so.
The damp, cold, still air brushed our faces as we nineteen rig crew walked out to board our waiting Sikorsky 61. Though we had trudged past several parked helicopters none were now to be seen through the thick fog as we climbed the steps, dipping our heads, to enter the long passenger cabin.
I always aimed to be first aboard which allowed me to shuffle sideways with my bags down to the single seat at the tail of the cabin. No standing room but right beside the emergency exit hatch.
When helicopters ditch they usually catch a still rotating rotor blade in the sea which drives the craft onto its side. The high mounted heavy engines and rotor assembly complete the job of a full capsize in seconds.
Now upside down in cold, dark water eighteen struggling bulkily suited men would scramble to open the large passenger door and stairs against gravity and water pressure…..
My left hand always reassuringly rested on the hatch lever ready to yank it up and push out when ever needed.
Nervous flyer? Three Norwegian Sikorsky 61s crashed during my assignment in Stavanger – with no survivors.
This particular windless morning allowed a smooth ride towards the platform. a regular one hour twenty minutes offshore. Noting the take-off time I watched the minutes tick by on my vibrating Omega Sea master chronograph watch. (A present to myself as reward for completing my first successful, big, thirty six hour logging job.)
At one hour and ten minutes the captain came over the cabin speakers:
“We are near the rig but we are not visual with it. I’m going to descend to sea level and everyone keep a lookout for the platform legs.”
We hadn’t been flying that high but now we were crawling slowly forward maybe ten feet above the calm sea. The downdraft from the rotor blades blasting the surface out in a massive circle of spray.
After a few minutes the chopper surged a hundred feet upwards and traversed right over the helideck and plonked down. I never saw a thing.
The pilot braked the rotors to a stop. The five blades drooped down in the still air. The whine of the two jet turbine engines replaced by the thrum of the gas driven rig generators.
I was last to disembark of course, glad to be on relative terra firma.