A Bristow Helicopters Nigeria Sikorsky S-76C++, registration 5N-BQJ, ditched into the Atlantic Ocean on the morning of 3 February 2016 while flying from the ExxonMobil-operated Erha floating production, storage and offloading vessel to Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. The aircraft was carrying nine passengers and two crew when it came down roughly 95 nautical miles offshore. All eleven people on board were rescued alive, with only the pilot reported injured.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the Accident Investigation Bureau confirmed the incident within hours, and a multi-agency search and rescue effort involving the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency and oil company vessels from Agip, Mobil and Shell helped recover the crew and passengers from the water. Bristow's regional director for Africa, Duncan Moore, said the company was "incredibly thankful" that everyone on board had been accounted for, and pledged full cooperation with investigators.
A Second Crash in Six Months
The ditching came less than six months after another Bristow Sikorsky S-76C+, 5N-BGD, crashed in the Oworonshoki area of Lagos on 12 August 2015, killing six of the twelve people on board, including the flight crew. With two accidents involving the same helicopter type in such a short window, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority moved to suspend all Bristow-operated Sikorsky S-76C++ helicopters pending a full audit, a decision the airline said it would comply with.
Investigation and Industry Concern
The Accident Investigation Bureau opened a formal probe into the ditching, and stakeholders in the offshore helicopter industry, which ferries thousands of oil and gas workers to platforms off Nigeria's coast every week, called for tighter scrutiny of ageing helicopter fleets and maintenance practices. The back-to-back incidents renewed a long-running debate in Nigeria's aviation sector about the safety margins around offshore rotorcraft operations, even as the survival of all eleven people aboard the February ditching was widely credited to quick emergency response and adherence to water-landing safety procedures.