ONGC personnel lacked escape, safety training

DEATH AT SEA - 3

The three-member inquiry committee set up by the ministry of petroleum after the crash of an ONGC helicopter on August 11, 2003 killing 27 people on board has said the corporation had not trained its offshore personnel in helicopter underwater escape training (HUET), despite a 2002 recommendation to this effect by a committee of experts.

The committee, headed by former petroleum secretary T S Vijayaraghavan, has also pointed to a "lack of clarity in functional and administrative reporting channels for offshore safety resulting in diffused responsibilities which bodes ill in a critical and emergent situation".

On the lack of HUET, the report said, "The Committee is confident that training in HUET could have made a substantial difference in saving lives."

The committee has based this comment on the reports of the salvage team that conducted rescue work after the crash and the accounts of the two survivors.

According to the Helideck Landing Officer on the Sagar Kiran rig, off which the crash occurred, "dead bodies were piled up one above the other near the main exit door".

A diver also reported that one window was broken and someone had opened the side door. "It therefore appeared that ... everyone made a beeline for [the side door], thus causing a stampede and preventing an escape," the report observed.

The committee conceded that "the whole episode from the first spin until the crash may not have taken more than 6 to 7 seconds" and that passengers may not have had time to react.

However, it points out that "this does not detract from the fact that passengers did not make adequate attempts to open the emergency doors".

One of the two survivors kicked open the rear emergency door and threw a lifeboat out. The report commented, "Both the survivors had not undergone HUET but managed to escape because of extraordinary presence of mind...that may not generally be expected at all."

The committee also pointed out that according to the standard operating procedures for offshore operations, a diagram of the method of operating emergency exits should be contained on a printed card which is given to each passenger travelling by MI-172. The printed card for the MI-172, however, omitted this.

Also, while passengers travelling by helicopter are shown safety and emergency procedures at the Juhu helibase, there is no such video for the MI-172, "although MI-172s [have been] in use with ONGC for over six years".

Although there are no international standards for HUET, ONGC had contended that none of the institutes where HUET was available had adequate training facilities according to its standards.

A committee of experts appointed by the ministry of petroleum in November 2001 had recommended, in a report dated March 13, 2002, that HUET should be conducted (with the aid of films or simulators) for all offshore going personnel.

The Vijayaraghavan committee report, which was submitted to the government in March 2004, said "there has been some hesitancy on the part of ONGC management to commence HUET even a good 20 months after the recommendation of the committee of experts and even now the decision of the management is not to make HUET mandatory for all regular offshore-going personnel."

In August 2002, ONGC's executive committee took a decision to develop a HUET facility at its Institute of Petroleum, Safety, Health and Environmental Management (IPSHEM) at Goa.

The committee considered this an impractical decision. "The decision apparently ignored that HUET is a pre-basic survival course ... and that the cost of air travel to Goa could be more than the cost of the entire HUET at Mumbai," it said.

The committee has also suggested that Goa may not be an appropriate location to conduct HUET "in terms of clearing the backlog of over 2400 personnel, the cost, the duration of absence of trainees from work" and so on.

It observed that, "the current target date of December 2004 to commence the one-day training, therefore, appears stretched and is not conducive to uplifting the morale of offshore-going personnel after the tragic accident of 8/11."

The committee has also pointed out that IPSHEM does not have accreditation for any of its courses from the International Association of Safety &Survival Training or the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Board, Scotland nor even the director general, shipping. This is in spite of a clear recommendation for the committee of experts in March 2002.

(The first two reports on the Vijayaraghavan Committee's findings were published on September 10 & 11)

A Clarification:

In the report published on September 11, the headline erroneously stated "Floats led to ONGC crash".

The Vijayaraghavan Committee report did not state this. It merely pointed that the Mesco MI-172 helicopter lacked the mandatory automatic emergency floats. The error is regretted.