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Cougar SAR

By Vertical Mag

story by Oliver Johnson | photos by Mike Reyno | December 17, 2013

Published on: December 17, 2013
Estimated reading time 19 minutes, 43 seconds.

Professional and expertly-delivered search and rescue — but this time, it’s not from the military. Cougar Helicopters opens the door to a new model of SAR off the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Times are changing in offshore oil and gas transportation. Today, the booming market is held under the microscope of public scrutiny to a greater degree than almost any other aviation sector. Multi-million dollar contracts grab industry headlines – and attention – around the globe, while the potential rewards offered by the sector’s continued growth have encouraged almost all the major helicopter manufacturers to develop a new generation of aircraft targeted directly at offshore transportation. At the same time, several high-profile helicopter ditchings over in the North Sea have thrown the industry back under the spotlight — resulting in unsympathetic (and, occasionally, misinformed) coverage from the mainstream media. Safety, quite rightly, is the key word, and as the industry continues to grow, the importance of cutting edge safety management systems — including the very best search and rescue (SAR) aircraft, crew, and equipment, could not be understated.
In Canada, the tipping point for a rethink of offshore safety was the fatal crash of Cougar flight 491, on March 12, 2009, off the coast of Newfoundland. Following the accident, an Offshore Helicopter Safety Inquiry was established, headed by former Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Robert Wells. Soon after the inquiry began hearing evidence, Wells felt compelled to write to the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) — ahead of the filing his official report — with an interim recommendation that he felt could save lives. He saw an urgent need for a SAR operation dedicated to the offshore industry; one that could crucially reach people in an emergency situation in a drastically-reduced time. “The speed of response is especially important in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore because our distances are great, and the North Atlantic over which we fly is perhaps the most hostile offshore helicopter environment,” Wells wrote in his letter to the C-NLOPB. “If a helicopter is forced to ditch in our waters, the life expectancy of survivors is limited, even with the best immersion or flotation suits and the best training. . . . I have no doubts about the skills of Cougar’s pilots and rescue specialists; however a fulltime, dedicated and fully equipped response helicopter ready to go in 15 or 20 minutes is what is needed in St. John’s, and needed as quickly as possible. It should be equipped with a forward looking infrared camera mounted externally . . . [and] it requires to be mounted on a fulltime dedicated helicopter [that] is also equipped with auto-hover and a double winch.”
The contents of that letter were set in stone as the first of 29 recommendations in the inquiry’s final report; but, armed with Wells’ wish list, as well as decades of experience in the search and rescue role, Cougar Helicopters, together with the C-NLOPB, wasted no time in realizing the vision. A Sikorsky S-92, dedicated to — and fully equipped for — the SAR mission, was quickly added to Cougar’s fleet (making Cougar the first operator — civilian or military — to utilize the S-92 in a SAR role), and additional pilots and rescue specialists were brought on board.
The “wheels-up” time for a SAR mission out towards the offshore platforms was almost immediately cut in half — from 60 minutes, to just 30. The creation of a new 27,500-square-foot hangar at St. John’s International Airport in Newfoundland, built specifically to house Cougar’s SAR operation, has resulted in that time being further reduced; when a call comes in, the team now expects to be in the air within 15 minutes — well inside the time specified by Wells. But a visit to the hangar quickly reveals that this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of exceptional performance. Utilizing the very best in personnel, equipment, training and facilities, Cougar, through its partnership with the offshore oil companies, has created a SAR operation that it sees as complementary and equal in overall capability to that provided by the military.
A NEW TYPE OF SAR
Although the service now provided by Cougar is relatively new, the company has been active in SAR since 1991. At that time, it was using an S-76 from its base in Halifax, but a partial SAR system soon developed at its St. John’s location. Although this became more elaborate over time, it still required the aircraft — most recently an S-61 — to be reconfigured for the SAR mission once a call for assistance came in (a process that could take about an hour to complete). Walking into Cougar’s SAR hangar today, it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic shift in capability. Sitting proudly in its own dedicated place in the spotless facility, the dedicated SAR S-92, highly customized for its crucial mission, is ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The list of equipment on the aircraft is impressive, and goes above and beyond that requested by Wells in the inquiry report. There is, of course, the forward looking infrared camera, which in this case is a FLIR Ultra 8500XRT, mounted under the aircraft’s nose. Inside, a custom-built FLIR station allows a crewmember to work both the FLIR and a 30-million candle power Spectrolab Nightsun searchlight, although the two are not slaved together. The station also serves as a communications hub, allowing all satellite calls to be handled in the back.
The aircraft has full triage, oxygen air, respiratory distress, burn and hypothermic treatment kits, as well as tools for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and a defibrillator. In addition to this, it carries two survival kits that can be deployed from the air, each consisting of a 10-man life raft, and 250-feet of floating polypropylene rope connected to a supply bundle.
The team uses a Goodrich dual rescue hoist, with 300 feet of usable cable and a maximum weight of 600 pounds — but with an overload capacity of 1,100 pounds. The rescue slings have a built-in strop to prevent a person slipping through, while a rescue basket and Stokes litter complete the recovery equipment carried.
Two auxiliary fuel tanks allow the SAR team to take an extra 1,000 pounds of fuel, and provide the S-92 with an operating range of 290 nautical miles, with 30 minutes on-scene. Offshore refueling can increase this range if necessary.
But the aircraft, like the program itself, is constantly evolving, with new capabilities added over time. Over the last few months, two key developments have added a whole new level to Cougar’s SAR offering — crew hover control and night vision goggle (NVG) use.
The crew hover control function enables the hoist operator to make minor adjustments to the aircraft’s position, once it’s in the hover. Using a small control arm situated by the cabin door, the hoist operator can move the aircraft to an optimal position over a target to complete the hoist.
Finally, the aircraft is fully night vision goggle (NVG) compatible, with Cougar’s SAR crews recently completing extensive training, facilitated by night vision specialist Night Flight Concepts, to enable the use of NVGs in its operations.
“Obviously we want to prepare for the worst case scenario, and the most challenging conditions,” Wayne Timbury, Cougar’s SAR chief pilot told Vertical. “Right now, the guys don’t fly offshore at night, but in future it may happen, so you need to have the capability to pick people out of the water. The two aircraft we have configured now with the SAR AFCS — the auto transition, auto hover capability — both those aircraft are also fitted with the NVG cockpit. So, we basically combine the two using the auto transition to get down, and then use the goggles to assist us with the hoisting.”
Rick Banks, Cougar’s search and rescue program manager (and a former SAR Tech with the Royal Canadian Air Force), said the support of the company’s offshore customers was crucial in allowing the aircraft to become specialized to such a degree. “Our customers have helped elevate our SAR capabilities and equipment in an instrumental manner through joint funding assistance,” he said. “They’re enabling us to move in a very innovative and proactive direction with all these new elaborate tools, especially with this airframe — and there’s no doubt, no question in my mind, that the S-92 is the aircraft for this work. All the crew members that have been using it, having come from a variety of backgrounds with experience in different airframes, they just love it.”
Evan Sturge has been a pilot at Cougar for six years, but has been flying offshore for much of the last 30 years. Like all Cougar SAR pilots, he works three weeks on, three weeks off. Within that working shift, he flies a week on the line (the regular scheduled flights between St. John’s and the offshore platforms), followed by a week of the day SAR, and finally a week on the night SAR shift. He said the North Atlantic provides some of the world’s most challenging flying conditions.
“Icing, restricted visibility, and wind are probably the three big elements that make this the harshest environment around,” he said. “But exposure to it dictates whether or not you feel comfortable, and I’ve spent my working life here, as have many others.”
The unpredictable nature of SAR flying was in itself a challenge, he said. “You have to think on your feet. You come in in the morning, and based on how the day unfolds, you could be doing an offshore rescue scenario with a boat, or something on land… you just don’t know the nature of what you’re going to be doing.”
When Cougar started completing SAR missions, its aircraft were manned by a crew of four — the two pilots would be joined by a rescue specialist and a hoist operator. But today, when the S-92 flies out on a SAR mission, it’s carrying two rescue specialists in its cabin, alongside the hoist operator. “There are a lot of operations globally that work with the one [rescue specialist] approach, but given our remote location and mission tasking distance, a backup rescue specialist is deemed vital to the operation. For example, if the first man on the cable is inadvertently cut away and injured, the second rescue specialist can assist him and carry out mission completeness. For us, that second man is an essential team element that provides not only backup, but advanced medical skills and overall assistance to the team during all missions. Fundamentally, it’s the way to go.”
It’s perhaps no great surprise that many of the highly trained and highly skilled professionals who comprise Cougar’s SAR crews have a military search and rescue background.
According to Banks, the SAR personnel at Cougar have a total of over 500 years of SAR experience — many arriving at the company with an extensive search and rescue background. Banks said this history of performing such a demanding mission in some of the harshest climates on earth was invaluable. “There are times when you go out that Plan A goes to Plan B really quickly,” he said. “It’s having that experience level to adjust the plan while on scene that makes a world of difference.”
According to Steve Pettie, a hoist operator for Cougar’s SAR operation (and previously a flight engineer in the military), the transition into the S-92 from the AgustaWestland CH-149 Cormorant is very smooth. “It’s almost seamless for a hoist operator or a rescueman, because the equipment is very similar, the terminology is almost identical and the procedures are almost identical,” he told Canadian Skies. He said any differences were largely due to the Civil Aviation Regulations under which Cougar operated.
“There are minor limitations” he said. “We can’t actually open our ramp in the air — it’s not certified to open in flight. So, we don’t have that ability. . . . [And] the military has lower weather limits than ours.” On the flip side, the S-92 has the FLIR (which the Cormorant has yet to receive), and the dual auxiliary tanks provide the aircraft with a slightly greater range.
READY FOR THE CALL
Cougar’s constant reach for excellence in its SAR operations can be seen in its huge commitment to training. Typically, the SAR crews are expected to complete 80 hours of training flights each month, with each shift flying between one to two hours of training.
A simulated mission is selected at random each day; but, once a month, the team also undergoes a no-notice full SAR drill. “We want to test the SAR launch process every month, adjusting it where required to ensure the delivery of wheels up in 20 minutes is maintained at all times,” said Banks. “The more we can practice it, drill it, the better it’s going to be . . . [and] we’re averaging 14, 15 [minutes to wheels up] every drill that we have.”
Banks said the majority of training missions focus on working with life rafts, vessels and recovering people from the water. “There’s no doubt that the aircraft ditching scenario is a very important aspect we must train for, to ensure all variables are covered in a professional manner,” he said, adding that most exercises serve to ensure that all processes and procedures are in place to cope with such an event.
The service is funded by the oil companies through a pool. Due to C-NLOPB regulations, all offshore contracts in Newfoundland and Labrador require the customer to contribute towards the cost of the SAR service. The regulations also stipulate that the aircraft must be available 24/7 — and that if the SAR aircraft is down at any time, for any reason, the C-NLOPB must be notified immediately, and any line flights grounded. For this reason, Cougar has a backup S-92 that can be configured to the exact same specification as the full-time SAR aircraft. According to Bob Pardy, Cougar’s director of maintenance, this process can be completed in about two hours.
Pardy said the process of creating the S-92 in its final Cougar SAR configuration took between 18 to 24 months, from inception, through gaining supplemental type certificates (STCs) for various items, through building a prototype, to creating the finished aircraft. The STCs — required for the FLIR station, Nightsun mount, auxiliary tanks, and bubble window, amongst others — were completed in conjunction with VIH Aerospace.
He said the SAR S-92 has a team of two aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) dedicated to it during the day, while at night a larger crew comes in to complete any heavier maintenance (current C-NLOPB regulations restrict offshore flying in the region to daylight-only, so a regular line aircraft is used for any medevac call that comes in at night.)
A MODEL FOR SUCCESS
In October 2013, the National SAR Secretariat presented Cougar with the Excellence in SAR Innovation award at the National SARSCENE awards banquet in Chilliwack, B.C. The prestigious recognition showed that as the capabilities of Cougar’s civil SAR program and aircraft increase, so too is its reputation amongst SAR agencies on a national level.
But, while the company’s privately-funded program is considered an asset that can be utilized by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) Halifax, to help with government SAR missions, Cougar must ask the oil companies for permission through the C-NLOPB to respond, if a call does come in for assistance. However, “there’s never been an issue with approval,” said Banks.
Indeed, a response to a tasking beyond its original mission is something the company is happy to provide when possible. In recent years, it has provided privately-funded SAR across North America and Greenland, including operations in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.; Barrow, Alaska; and Galliano, La.
“With some of these remote areas, once you set up an operation, you become a tangible asset, able to provide humanitarian assistance when requested,” said Banks.
For now, the company is focusing on honing its capabilities and expertise in serving the mission for which it was created, while its rapid evolution will continue to see new layers of cutting-edge service added over the coming years. Canada may not have been the first to welcome civil SAR to its offshore region, but with Cougar’s new program, it’s now home to a service that’s setting the international standard.

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