Near miss during helicopter operations

During helicopter flight boarding, a member of the crew crossed a hard barrier (stairway access chain) with a restriction sign and approached the flight deck from the aft stairway while boarding activities were ongoing on the forward side.

A member of the helicopter emergency response team – an offshore helideck assistant – attempted to intervene by shouting.  The warning did not prevent the crew member from approaching the helicopter from the uncontrolled or prohibited direction and from passing beneath the tail rotor blades.

The HLO was controlling boarding from the forward stairway.  From CCTV records, it is estimated that distance between the crew member and the rotor tail was approximately 1.5-2 m.  No injury occurred during the event.

• The crew member did not follow safety rules on helideck (i.e. to NOT pass under the tail rotor).
• The HLO lost control of situation.
• Employee removed a safety barrier (chain).
• There was no signalman available to guard the safety barrier (chain).
• Employee was not escorted when ascending the stairs.

Some contributory factors identified by our Member were:

• The helideck readiness check was performed in an ineffective way.
• The helideck check list did not include a line item concerning how to correctly fold the foldable handrails in advance of helicopter landing and take-off. During the investigation, the foldable handrails had been found folded in the wrong direction;
• Passenger embarkation had been delayed by handover.