A man who escaped a fatal helicopter crash yesterday spoke for the first time about his ordeal.
Stuart Mathers was one of 12 offshore workers who survived the North Sea tragedy off Shetland, which left four people dead, including a man from Inverness and woman from Elgin. He believes the outcome could have been different, had passengers been informed about potentially-lifesaving breathing equipment in their lifejackets.
Mr Mathers has suffered nightmares since the crash. He admitted that he had “given up” after the helicopter fell into the sea.
“Nothing can prepare you for a crash,” he said. “The shock of looking out of the window as you’re going down is unbelievable. It took four or five seconds. You think, ‘Is this really happening to me’?”
The Super Puma was on its way back to Sumburgh Airport on August 23 when it ditched.
Mr Mathers, of Craigie, Dundee, said he was contacted last month by the Air Accident Investigation Branch as part of its probe into the tragedy. That was when he learned the lifejacket he was wearing at the time of the crash was different to the type he had used previously.
The jackets they wore that day featured air cylinders, instead of a model which required the wearer to blow into a tube before re-using that same air. The AAIB believes passengers were not briefed about the different system before they took off.
“They asked me if I was aware that the lifejacket I had been wearing was of a different type to the ones in the past,” the 38-year-old said. “I said no. I almost collapsed when they told me, I was absolutely furious.
“Afterwards all the nightmares came back. I was getting along okay, through therapy, and it’s put me right back.
“I gave up in that helicopter. I basically drank water to get it over and done with.”
The AAIB has ordered offshore helicopter companies to carry out an urgent review of pre-flight safety briefings on emergency breathing systems in the wake of the disaster.
Paul Hannat, a senior inspector of air accidents at the AAIB, said it did not appear the passengers had been given any information about the apparatus in their lifejackets. He said: “The briefing material that’s been given to us, that they would have seen, doesn’t include anything about the charged air cylinder.”