Inquiry into 84 deaths off Newfoundland in '82 urged rescue chopper be kept near drilling site
Kenyon Wallace
STAFF REPORTER
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. – In the wake of last week's deadly helicopter crash, the echoes of another devastating tragedy to hit this sea-hardened province – the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger offshore drilling rig – painfully reverberate.
"When I heard about the crash, it really brought me back to the Ocean Ranger," said Dave Russell, who was on the second-last helicopter to leave the doomed Grand Banks rig. "I sort of choked up and filled up. It was my crew that went down. I had changed crews just before she sank. I knew them all."
On the night of Feb. 14, 1982, the Ocean Ranger was drilling an exploration well for Mobil Oil in stormy seas about 270 kilometres east of St. John's. Crews reported waves as high as 19 metres and 190- km/h winds. Shortly after 7 p.m., radio conversations coming from the rig indicated it had suffered a broken porthole window and that water was inside the ballast control room. Soon after, crews noted the ballast control panel valves were opening and closing by themselves.
Just after midnight, the Ocean Ranger sent out a mayday and reported a severe list to the port side. The crew decided to abandon the rig in lifeboats, but by the time rescuers reached the scene at about 2:30 in the morning, those who managed to escape had succumbed to hypothermia and drowned.
By 3:13 a.m., the Ocean Ranger was gone. All 84 crew died. Only 22 bodies were recovered.
A two-year inquiry into the disaster found the Ocean Ranger had design and construction flaws and that workers on the rig were not equipped with adequate safety training or survival suits.
Russell, who worked as a roustabout on the rig, said the families of the 17 people killed when a Sikorsky S-92 ditched into the North Atlantic last week can expect to feel a variety of emotions in the coming weeks and months.
"They're going to go through the gamut of anger, depression, sadness, anxiety and everything to do with dealing with a sudden passing of a loved one and not knowing the reasons why they're gone."
The painstaking effort to collect the remains of the helicopter at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean took a major step forward yesterday with the recovery of the aircraft's "black box," a device expected to unlock the mystery behind the sudden crash of Cougar Flight 491.
The chopper's flight data and cockpit voice recorder were retrieved intact from the wreckage by an offshore supply ship and sent to Ottawa for analysis by the Transportation Safety Board.
Hours after the Atlantic Osprey vessel brought the final seven bodies of the 17 victims to port yesterday, it departed for the crash site and crews shifted their attention to determining what caused the crash.
Mike Heffernan, a St. John's writer whose cousin went down with the Ocean Ranger, told the Star Thursday's crash is a reminder of the risks facing those who make their living at sea.
"When the Hibernia oil field was discovered in 1979, there was so much hope and promise. Newfoundland had the largest unemployment rate per capita in the country, so getting a job on the Ocean Ranger was really the proverbial gold mine," he said. "When it sank, all of that hope and promise was dashed."
Questions about the time it took rescue choppers to reach the crash site last week have already been raised. At the time of the crash, three Cormorant helicopters usually stationed in Gander, Nfld., were being used in search-and-rescue training exercises near Sydney, N.S. By the time the first Cormorant arrived at the crash site, nearly two hours had passed since the distress call from the pilot was received.
Maj. Denis McGuire of the Joint Search and Rescue Centre told reporters last week he thinks the rescue choppers could have arrived an hour earlier if they had been stationed in Gander. And some Newfoundlanders want the military aircraft transferred permanently to St. John's to beef up search-and-rescue capabilities.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said yesterday it's not the right time to debate whether the helicopters should be moved. With a memorial service for the crash victims set for today in St. John's, those issues will have to wait, MacKay said in Shearwater, N.S.
The Royal Commission on the Ocean Ranger Marine Disaster recommended a full-time search-and- rescue-dedicated helicopter provided by either government or industry be stationed "at the airport nearest to ongoing offshore drilling operations, and that it be readily available with a trained crew able to perform all aspects of the rescue."
Former chief justice Alex Hickman, chair of the inquiry, said he wonders if there should have been at least one Cormorant left in Gander to deal with emergencies.
