The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Relatives of 16 men
who died in a North Sea helicopter crash have renewed calls for a public inquiry after a sheriff found the tragedy might have been avoided,
THE FA MILIES of 16 men who died in a North Sea helicopter crash have called for the aircraft’s operator to be prosecuted after an inquiry found the tragedy might have been avoided.
Fourteen oil workers and two crew died when the Bond Super Puma plunged into the water off the A berdeenshire coast on A pril 1 2009.
Their relatives have called for the Crown Office to review its decision not to pursue a criminal prosecution against Bond after a fatal accident inquiry (FA I) identified failings in the maintenance of the aircraft’s gearbox in the days before the crash.
Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle said the tragedy was “possibly” the result of a failure to detect a significant fault in the helicopter’s gearbox.
Audrey Wood, who lost her son Stuart Wood in the crash, said: “We, the families, feel let down by the system. We just wanted answers. We will never have closure, this will go on and on for us.
“We are asking to meet with the Lord Advocate to try and convince him that the case against Bond helicopters needs to be looked at again.
“No more families should have to go through what we have been through.”
Lorraine Doyle, from Cumbernauld, who lost her father Raymond in the crash, said: “Basically this could have been avoided. We’ve always known it but now it’s in black and white.
“How Bond thinks we could get closure from this, I don’t know. It’s almost cruel what we’ve had to go through. You can’t move on, you go through day to day existing, it’s always at the back of your mind.
“To put us through it for this length of time is cruel.
Solicitor advocate Tom Marshall, who represented relatives at the FA I, said: “There were numerous opportunities for Bond to have prevented this awful tragedy. Had they followed the correct procedure for these craft then the fault in the gear box would have been properly dealt with.
“It’s an appalling state of affairs where 16 men can lose their lives while simply returning from work and yet no one has yet been prosecuted.”
The families have joined trade unions in calling for a full public inquiry into offshore safety in the North Sea.
The Crown Office said it would meet with relatives but that the decision not to prosecute was “correct”.
A statement said: “For a criminal prosecution to have taken place, the Crown would have to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
“The sheriff principal makes clear that a reasonable doubt remained over the technical cause of the crash.
“The evidence presented during the FA I has not altered the insufficiency of evidence therefore the decision not to hold criminal proceedings remains the correct one.”
A n earlier A ir Accidents Investigation Branch probe into the crash found that the aircraft suffered a “catastrophic failure” of its main rotor gearbox.