Speeches

Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of (a) Airbus EC225 and (b) AS332 helicopters have been withdrawn from commercial service in the UK North Sea oil and gas sector since the fatal incident off the coast of Bergen, Norway on 29 April 2016.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has been working very closely with the Norwegian CAA following the Airbus EC225LP incident on the 29th April.

Shortly after the accident, the CAA introduced restrictions to Airbus Helicopters EC225LP to prevent operations for commercial flights by UK operators. On 11th of May, these restrictions were extended to include the AS332L2 Super Puma helicopter.

Following a report by Norwegian Air Accident Investigators on 1st June, the CAA further extended these restrictions to prohibit all flights by these helicopters until further information is available.