In a disruption to offshore operations, helicopter flights transporting workers across the North Sea have been grounded due to a rare weather event known as “triggered lightning”.
This atmospheric phenomenon has caused severe weather conditions, impacting all major helicopter operators in the region.
Flights from Aberdeen Airport were not permitted to take off today [8 Jan] as a result of the risk.
Triggered lightning is a rare occurrence that happens primarily in the North Sea and the Sea of Japan during winter months.
It involves two key components:
- Ice crystals in cloud bases which create positively-charged areas.
- Helicopters which generate negative charges through static electricity from rotor blade friction.
When a negatively-charged helicopter flies near a positively charged area, the interaction can result in a lightning strike.
This phenomenon typically occurs only once or twice between November and April each year.
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Tim Glasspool, Bristow’s Head of UK Flight Operations, explained the challenges: “To a passenger sitting in the Aberdeen terminal, or on an offshore platform, the weather might look pretty decent. On a cold but cloudy day, perhaps with hardly any wind, calm seas and no fog, things might seem good for an on-time departure. But in the flight planning room our Met Office weather forecasting system can tell a very different story.”
This latest grounding follows the situation a couple of days ago when Bristow helicopters were forced to make a weather-related emergency landing at Aberdeen Airport. A spokesperson for Bristow said: “Our teams will work hard to make up the flights as soon as they can but safety will always take priority.
“Weather is a key issue for all operators at this time of year.”
