Accident
The 22-year old helicopter was flying at an altitude of about 320 ft (98 m) when workers on the Global Santa Fe Monarch heard "a loud bang". No witnesses were actually watching the aircraft at the time, but some saw it dive steeply into the sea. A witness also reported seeing the helicopter's rotor head with rotor blades attached falling into the sea after the body of the helicopter had impacted.
The accident caused the death of all those on board (two crew members and nine Shell workers as passengers). The body of the eleventh man has never been recovered.
Read more about this topic: 2002 Bristow Helicopters Sikorsky S-76A Crash
Famous quotes containing the word accident:
“It wasn’t by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)