Grahame M. Morris – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame M. Morris on 2014-03-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of implementing the recommendations in the Civil Aviation Authority’s safety review of helicopter operations in the offshore oil and gas industry on the annual number of passenger-carrying helicopter flights in that industry.

Robert Goodwill

The primary concern of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is the safety of the public, and the absolute focus of its recent Offshore Helicopter Review has been to make safety improvements in that sector. I am satisfied that implementing the recommendations in the CAA Review will lead to improvements in safety and that all the changes proposed are both realistic and achievable. The CAA is directly engaging with the oil and gas industry, helicopter operators and workforce representative groups through its new Safety Action Group. I do not see that recommendations contained in the Review will have any significant effect on the annual number of offshore helicopter operations.