4 September 2013
On Friday 23 August the Shetland Fireball fleet were fully rigged, with the crews getting changed in the Lerwick Boating Club when preparations were halted by Andrew Grant's lifeboat alert bleeper. Andrew, the crew on SHE14635 immediately abandoned his sailing preparations and rushed to the lifeboat station. As this is very close to the Boating Club he one of the first crew ready to go onboard the lifeboat.
It soon became clear this was no practice drill but a full emergency, with the lifeboat crews shouting for everybody to hurry as a helicopter had ditched in the sea near Sumburgh airport.
The lifeboat was quickly deployed and reached a speed of 30 knots in seconds she was under the command of Coxswain Bruce Leask, who was the PRO for Fireball European Championship in 2003 and will be PRO again in 2014 and her crew of 7.
The lifeboat proceeded to the scene and helped in the rescue operation. 14 survivors were rescued from the helicopter but unfortunately the lifeboat had to assist in recovering 4 bodies from the sea. The lifeboat returned to Lerwick in the early hours of the morning, but was called back to the area the following afternoon to assist in recovering the helicopter fuselage.
The Shetland Fireball fleet was further linked to the rescue as David Grant's, brother John was the Captain on the Coastguard search and rescue helicopter.
The local 'Fireball' connection did not end there, as on Wednesday 28 August, local dive team Ocean Kinetics led by Roger Goudie, SHE 14513, were called to the site and successfully recovered the engines, gear box, tail rotor section and most importantly the 'black box' flight recorder. This will allow the authorities to discover the cause of the accident.
As a very small side issue, the rest of the Fireballs enjoyed two great races in 20 Knot + winds!
Readers will not be surprised to hear Lerwick lifeboat is the chosen charity at next year's Fireball European Championship.
For further details checkout the links below.
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http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/7263-helicopter-crash-live-feed
http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/7285-super-puma-black-box-found-on-seabed
