Safety Issue

The powerline maintenance provider advised that, immediately following the accident, it:

Suspended all operations of the helicopter operator until it was satisfied that all appropriate safety procedures were in place.

Commissioned an independent audit to report on certain aspects of [the helicopter operator’s] operations including safety management systems and training procedures.

In addition, the powerline maintenance provider advised of the following amendments to its operational procedures:

Operational changes

Prior to the incident a debrief was held with [the helicopter operator’s] crew prior to the commencement of each planned maintenance job. We now require that [the helicopter operator] is to provide a formal documented debrief to [us] and the [asset owner] after each planned maintenance job. The exceptions to this directive are that and incident occurring during flight must be reported immediately and that because of work load the maximum time within which to hold a debrief is one week.

Auditing

As advised earlier [we] have retained an external auditor to report on the safety and operational practices of [the helicopter operator]. Audit recommendations have been adopted.

In response to this accident, the operator has indicated that it will:

Communicate with individual power companies to obtain their known hazard locations for with respect to Airborne Operations.

Information on transposition locations is now included in the job package.