Bond Offshore Helicopters is already facing a police investigation following a fatal accident three years ago.
The probe into yesterday’s ditching will be led by the Air Accident Investigation Branch.
However, the Press and Journal understands that detectives may consider the findings of the latest incident as part of their investigation into the 85N tragedy.
Operation Crimond was launched on April 1, 2009, when Bond flight 85N crashed into the sea – 14 miles off Peterhead – and everyone on board died.
It was the UK oil and gas industry’s biggest loss of life since the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988.
Two pilots and 14 oil workers died because of a “catastrophic” gearbox failure, which separated the main rotor from the Super Puma.
The fatal flaws which led to the tragedy were laid bare by air crash investigators last year.
An alarm sounded on the helicopter – an AS332 L2 model – at 12.54pm. Just 23 seconds later, all contact with the aircraft was lost.
It later emerged that a magnetic particle was found on part of the main rotor gearbox – which was known as the “second-stage planet gear” – a week before the Super Puma crashed.
This prompted Bond Offshore Helicopters to initiate a plan to remove the gearbox and replace it with a unit from another helicopter.
However, the piece of debris was dismissed after a “misunderstanding” between Bond engineers and manufacturer Eurocopter.
The appearance of the particle is seen as an early warning of a possible gearbox failure.
The Super Puma operator had asked for help from Eurocopter about the gearbox problem and, after further examination, the particle was misidentified as “unimportant”.
The tragedy happened just weeks after another Bond-operated Super Puma plunged into the North Sea.
All 18 people on board EC225 – the same model that was involved in yesterday’s incident – survived the crash.
The company also had to deal with another safety scare earlier this week when it briefly grounded its EC135 fleet – the helicopter used as Scotland’s air ambulance.
They have now been cleared to fly again.