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It is unclear whether the Super Puma EC 225 will fly back to oil facilities after Norway today repealed the helicopter-type safety directive.
It was a Eurocopter EC 225 LP type helicopter that was boarded in 2016. The safety directive for the type of helicopter is now repealed.
Jarle Aasland
Published:,
Equinor has no plans to reuse the Super Puma EC 225 helicopter type.
– We have not considered it to be used by us, and it has also been completely removed for transport services and SAR helicopter services in the companies that supply it to us. We are very pleased with the current Sikorsky S-92 helicopter model, which is the helicopter used today, press contact Morten Eek in Equinor tells Aftenbladet.
– Can be used again
The Civil Aviation Authority has decided that the Super Puma EC 225 helicopter type, which the dash in Turøy in Øygarden in 2016, can now be used again.
This writes TV 2.
After the accident in 2016, Norway has had a national safety directive for EC 225 and AS 332 L2 helicopters. The Security Directive is repealed today, Thursday, May 14.
Use the confusion
Federal Secretary Henrik Solvorn Fjeldsbø at Industrial Energy tells TV 2 that it is surprising that the safety directive is repealed the day before the application deadline for a larger tender for helicopter services in northern Norway expires.
The Ministry of Justice has invited companies to deliver SAR (search and rescue) helicopters to bases in Tromsø and Svalbard.
The Norwegian special security directive is removed one day before the deadline for applications for a major contract to provide helicopter services expires.
The Ministry of Justice has invited companies to provide helicopter services in the north. Specifically, we are talking about delivering SAR (search and rescue) helicopters to bases in Tromsø and Svalbard. A contract of at least six years with the possibility of renewal.
Industry Energy believes this is an issue that should have been heard before the helicopter type is used again. Solvorn Fjeldsbø tells TV 2 that it can now create confusion if he is free to use the helicopter type again to transport oil workers to and from oil facilities.
Oil workers aboard a Super Puma Aerospatiale AS-332L2 belonging to CHC Helicopter Service AS in the Alvheim field in 2008.
Jarle Aasland
– No change in security requirements.
Wenche Olsen, technical director of the Civil Aviation Authority, tells TV 2 that it would normally be a consultation round, but here it was unnecessary because the repeal does not imply changes in security requirements.
– Both EASA and Airbus meet the requirements set out in Norway’s special safety directive through their safety requirements and service requirements, says Olsen, who understands that many think the consultation should have been done.
– If this change had somehow led to changes to the security requirements that would be established, of course it would have been an audience, she says.
Olsen adds that this repeal of the Safety Directive does not open or close opportunities for operators or types of helicopters.
– This directive could have been repealed six months ago. We agreed with the UK authorities on this date, and then the directive will be repealed simultaneously in Norway and the UK, Olsen told TV 2.
13 people died when a Super Puma helicopter boarded near Turøy in Øygarden, northwest of Bergen.
Hommedal, Marit / NTB scanpix
13 people lost their lives
On Friday April 29, 2016, a 2,000-foot helicopter crashed on its way from the Gullfaks B oil rig in the North Sea to Bergen airport, Flesland.
A few minutes from Flesland, on an islet near Turøy, northwest of Bergen, the rotor was detached from the Super Puma helicopter. The cause of the accident was due to a fatigue failure in a second stage planetary gearbox in the main gearbox. The cracks developed undetected in a catastrophic failure.
Thirteen people were on board and died in the worst helicopter crash on the Norwegian continental shelf in 40 years.
The helicopter was operated by CHC Helicopter Service and transported oil workers for the then Statoil.
