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At press time, Cougar Helicopters was in the midst of developing its new 27,500-square-foot (2,550-square-meter) hangar at the St John’s International Airport in Newfoundland. The hangar has been specifically designed as a base for Cougar’s existing search and rescue (SAR) operation; will have space for up to two Sikorsky S-92s and room for all the applicable rescue equipment; and will house SAR staff members, who are on standby 24 hours a day/seven days a week. The hangar is scheduled to be finished in the first quarter of 2012. 

Currently, Cougar maintains one dedicated, SAR-equipped S-92 as part of a private contract with the offshore oil and gas industry. This S-92 has a 30-minute response time for callouts.

The new hangar will allow Cougar to reduce that response time to meet a directive issued by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), the regulator for offshore oil projects around Newfoundland and Labrador. The directive arose from recommendations made by the inquiry into the widely publicized March 12, 2009, accident in which a Cougar Helicopters S-92 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean en route to the offshore Hibernia and White Rose oilfields (see p.30, Vertical, June-July 2009; and p.46, Vertical, April-May 2011). 

Among the series of recommendations was one to improve maritime SAR capabilities on the East Coast, the site of most of Canada’s offshore oil and gas exploration and production. In particular, C-NLOPB asked for a response time of 15 to 20 minutes from callout to wheels up. To make initial improvements, Cougar dedicated an S-92 SAR mission helicopter to offshore duty, cutting response times in half (from the original one hour). The dedicated hangar, with standby flight and SAR crews, will reduce that response time even further.

The eastern Newfoundland offshore regions supported by the Cougar SAR helicopter are vast (and the weather is often poor, with high seas, fog, rain and snow in almost every weather forecast). The three principal oil fields, Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose, are all located between 185 and 220 miles (300 and 350 kilometers) east and east-southeast of St John’s. Cougar uses its S-92 fleet here to provide both crew change and SAR capabilities. In 2011, the company conducted 1,315 offshore flights carrying 23,988 passengers.

According to Cougar, it is the first operator in North America, civilian or military, to utilize the S-92 in a SAR role. Its dedicated SAR helicopter has a number of significant additions in both equipment and crewing. These include Sikorsky’s SAR automatic flight control system (AFCS) with auto-hover mode, a forward-looking infrared system with designated cabin console, a Spectrolab Nightsun searchlight, a Goodrich dual rescue hoist, night-vision-goggle capability, auxiliary fuel tanks, air-droppable survival kits, a variety of litters, a rescue sling and medical kits. The helicopter also has a full complement of avionics based around the Rockwell Collins/Sikorsky avionics management system, which is augmented with the Universal Avionics UNS-1Esp flight/multi-mission management system. The SAR crew, meanwhile, consists of two pilots and three rescue specialists.

According to Sikorsky, when all this equipment is combined, the S-92 can locate a rescue site, utilize the SAR AFCS autopilot, decelerate, descend, turn into the wind and hover at 50 feet, providing the flight crew with increased situational awareness and a lower workload during the SAR mission. 

The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) provides SAR service in the area, as well, but its base at 9 Wing Gander, Nfld., is in the northeastern part of the island province, at least an hour’s flight from St. John’s. Equipped with AgustaWestland CH-149 (AW101) Cormorants, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) 103 Search and Rescue Squadron provides SAR services for a substantial area that encompasses “the lower Arctic, the Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador, and all offshore waters in the region.” Although its response time (at 19.5 minutes) during peak hours is impressive, due to the location of the offshore oilfields any RCAF SAR operation for oil and gas emergencies would potentially have to stop in St John’s for fuel after the ferry flight from Gander, causing an unavoidable, but still unwanted, delay.  

Conversely, while Cougar Helicopters’ SAR program is a private, contracted service for the oil and gas industry, it has in the past been tasked by the DND’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) in Halifax, N.S., to respond to other emergencies (often fishing-vessel-related) when the CH-149s are not available. In a life-and-death situation, and provided the offshore coverage is maintained, Cougar said it would continue to respond to future JRCC Halifax requests when able to do so.