Significant lessons to be learned from helicopter crash, says report

investigation into a fatal helicopter crash off the Norwegian coast has warned there are “significant lessons” to be learned for gearbox safety and monitoring.

The Accident Investigation Board Norway (AIBN) probe into the crash that killed British oil worker Iain Stuart found a critical structural component in the helicopter “could fail totally without any pre-detection by the existing monitoring means”.

Mr Stuart, from Laurencekirk in Aberdeenshire, was one of 11 passengers and two crew members killed when an Airbus Super Puma 225 aircraft with the registration LN-OJF came down near the city of Bergen in April 2016.

The AIBN investigation found the main rotor sudan denly detached from the helicopter with no warning as a result of a gear fracturing due to “fatigue”.

It found the failure “developed in a manner which was unlikely to be detected”.

The report found “clear similarities” with the 2009 Super Puma crash near Peterhead which killed 16 people, which was also found to have been caused by “fatigue failure” in a gear.