What happened
On 19 February 2017, an Agusta AW1im39, registration PH-EUJ, was performing a seven-sector passenger shuttle service in the North Sea. The flight was part of a collaborative effort between the Dutch and UK arms of the operator to support a UK-based customer. After successfully completing the first three sectors, the crew departed from the Seafox 4 platform to proceed to their fourth destination.
Upon arrival, the crew landed on the Leman 27B helideck. The platform was unmanned as no arrivals had been scheduled for that location. The error was identified immediately when passengers informed the crew they were on the wrong rig, a fact subsequently confirmed by a radio transmission from the Leman 27B platform. Following established company procedures for landing on an unintended helideck, the crew consulted with the Leman area radio operator to identify the correct destination and then departed for Shell Leman 26B, where they landed without further incident.
The investigation
The investigation focused on how the incorrect destination was selected and why the error was not detected by the crew. It was established that the error originated in the operations department during the manual flight planning process. While converting the customer's route request into an operational flight plan, staff used a drop-down menu to select destinations.
Because the customer used specific codes (such as LEB) that differed from the operator's internal system, staff had to manually decode the information. When searching for the fourth destination, the staff searched using the term "Leman," which presented a list of platforms. They selected Leman 27B, which was the only option in that specific list ending in "B," whereas the correct destination, Shell Leman 26B, required searching under the "Shell" category.
Furthermore, the investigation found that the crew received a passenger manifest for the upcoming leg that listed the destination as "Leman Bravo." This nomenclature reinforced the incorrect information already present in the digital flight plan. Additionally, neither the crew nor the radio operator utilized full callsigns during communications, which might have highlighted the discrepancy.
Findings
- The primary cause was a manual data entry error by operations staff during the flight planning stage.
- Complexities in the coding differences between the customer's system and the operator's system contributed to the selection of the wrong helideck.
- The use of the term "Leman Bravo" on the flight manifest served to validate the error in the minds of the crew.
- The crew lacked a clear, accessible source of installation coding to verify the flight plan against the customer's original request.
- The error could have been intercepted during the initial briefing, during the manifest check, or during radio communications with the area operator.