Hello David,

According to a friend of mine who used to fly helicopters to oil rigs, it's
not exactly a white knuckle ride, but there is always a bit of a nagging
thought in the mind of the pilots along the lines of "Unless we're 100% sure
why that engine broke, we can't be sure the other one won't" and so it's
always a relief when you get it on the ground. My friend had a gearbox break
one day, but there were two engines and two gearboxes, and the second one
worked fine and the flight went off safely.

Some of these oil rig flights are done with pretty old equipment. I had
been on old Bell Seaking helicopters (as a passenger going to a rig).
About 200 miles or so across the North Sea. We had to don survival suits
and one of the older folks said there is a very good reason for that. He
had gone down once and it took a while until rescue came.

Helicopters are sensitive things. When something would go wrong with the
rotor it may not be recoverable. We had one go down about 1/2 mile from
here last year and unfortunately that one was fatal. I believe a bolt
had come off the rotor assy so there probably was nothing the pilot
could have done.

You can't be sure, after all, that whatever caused the fault in one engine
won't do so in another. I remember reading of an incident in a three-engine
aircraft (DC-10?) where a mechanic changed the magnetic chip detectors
(little screw-in plugs that attract particles of metal that have worn off
the engine so you can analyse them) and replaced them with new ones that
didn't have their rubber seals fitted. So all three engines ran low on oil
some way into the flight. Initially they thought there was a spurious oil
leak (ruptured/worn pipe or whatever) in the engine that failed first, only
to see the oil pressure drop on the other two first!

That is scary. I bet the first time a crew experienced a flame-out
because the Concorde flew by got white knuckles, too. What I read was
that it affected all the engines.

I remember that we got some serious attention when landing in Franfurt
on one engine. All the fire trucks and ambulances they could muster were
seen on the ground, lights flashing and all. They cleared the whole
airspace and that alone was an unusual sight. It wasn't too scary for me
because I used to parachute. That's where you have to stick the landing
no matter what. No engines...

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com