A helicopter was stranded on board an oil platform yesterday after its crew attempted to recover the body of a worker.
The Bristow-operated aircraft had flown a doctor and officers from Grampian Police to the Ninian South platform to pick up the man, who died on Wednesday night.
It is understood that the helicopter tried to take off on Thursday night, but had an engine problem.
It was left stranded on the installation’s helideck as engineers from Aberdeen travelled to the scene.
A spokeswoman for Bristow said: “We can confirm that one of our AS332L Tiger helicopters was shut down on an offshore installation as a precautionary measure.
“This followed a suspected fault which occurred during take-off on Thursday evening at around 7pm.
“The aircraft had three passengers and two crew on board at the time of the incident.”
She added: “An engineering team travelled to the installation yesterday to inspect the aircraft prior to releasing it to normal service.”
The man’s body is understood to have arrived back onshore yesterday.
A spokeswoman for Grampian Police said: “Our officers arrived back in Aberdeen safely yesterday afternoon after boarding a later flight.”
Jake Molloy, regional organiser for the RMT union’s offshore branch, added: “The fact that engineers are getting into the guts of the aircraft shows that even a possibly minor incident is being taken very seriously.
“That is the future and if a helicopter pilot has any cause for concern then they must err on the side of caution – that is the only option.”