Operators of R116 knew life jackets were faulty five years ago
THE company that operates helicopter search and rescue services in Ireland knew up to five years before the R116 crash that life jackets supplied to its pilots were faulty.
Pilots began raising safety concerns about the life jackets, which are designed to send out a distress signal via GPS automatically when they come in contact with water, with CHC Ireland in 2011 – more than five years before the tragedy.
But despite these concerns, in the weeks after the tragedy, in which all four crew died, pilots claim they were still being asked to fly with the jackets.
A report on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night revealed that when R116 went down, search and rescue satellites received no distress signals and there were no pings off the beacons on any of the pilot or crews’ life jackets.
A CHC Ireland employee told the programme: ‘Obviously, if you highlight a safety concern... management... see if they could improve it. But again, how reports from 2011 onwards could slip through cracks and be closed off as fixed is just… no one can comprehend that.’
Pilots began raising the issue with CHC after realising that under the guidelines given by the manufacturer of the lifejackets, the beacons were unlikely to work. They had recommended that the antenna and the beacon should be at least 30cm apart in a lifejacket. But in jackets worn by rescue crews at that time, the beacon and antenna were in the same pouch together.
A safety report filed by a crew member in 2014 stated: ‘Effectively, this means the beacon could produce absolutely zero receivable transmissions.’
According to RTÉ, crew members sending the hazard alerts were being told the design office was looking at the issue in 2012 – but the jackets were never modified. The issue came to a head in the weeks after the disaster when pilots refused to fly a scheduled night mission over water.
The source told Prime Time: ‘What we were more amazed at is that when the preliminary report came out, that the Aviation
Jackets still in use even after crash
Authority didn’t step in and say, “Hang on, you can’t operate like this”.’ After this engagement with management, the lifejackets for both the winch crew and the pilots were tested. The jacket that the winch crew wore passed, but those worn by the pilots failed and were withdrawn.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit identified this crucial issue in a preliminary report issued four weeks after the R116 crash, and issued a safety recommendation to manufacturers.
In a statement, CHC Ireland said: ‘Given that the Rescue 116 accident continues to be the subject of a formal investigation... it would be inappropriate for us to respond to specific questions of a technical nature.’ The manufacturer Beaufort Ltd told the programme it is ‘aware of the findings of the AAIU report, which are at this stage preliminary’.
All four crew members, Capt. Dara Fitzpatrick, Capt. Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith died when the helicopter crashed into Blackrock Island, Co. Mayo, in March.