A helicopter carrying six people crash landed in the ocean off the coast of western Norway on Wednesday, according to the country’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centres. All those on board were later hoisted from the sea. Haukeland University Hospital, the region’s largest, reported that it had received all six patients from the accident, but their medical condition was unclear at the moment. The helicopter belonged to Bristow Norway, as confirmed by the company’s country manager, Heidi Wulff Heimark, in an interview with daily Stavanger Aftenblad. Energy group Equinor stated that the helicopter was a search and rescue aircraft typically serving platforms at the company’s Oseberg oil and gas field in the North Sea.
The helicopter involved in the crash was identified as a Sikorsky S-92 model and was on a search and rescue training mission at the time of the accident, as per a police spokesperson. It was too early to determine the cause of the crash, with Sikorsky, a unit of Lockheed Martin, expressing readiness to support investigative authorities and the customer. The area where the incident occurred was reportedly experiencing high winds, according to a rescue service official speaking to broadcaster TV2. Air traffic data indicated several rescue helicopters circling near an island west of Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city and a key hub for the Norwegian offshore oil and gas industry. Notably, in 2016, an Airbus Super Puma helicopter crashed in the same general area, resulting in the deaths of all 13 individuals on board. This tragic incident led to the Norwegian oil and gas industry halting the use of that particular type of helicopter as a precautionary measure. The report was by Nerijus Adomaitis and Terje Solsvik.