The U.S. Coast Guard is responding to a report of an offshore helicopter crash in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.
Coast Guard’s 8th District announced on Twitter crews were searching for 4 people aboard a downed helicopter approximately 10 miles offshore Southwest Pass, Lousiana.
The Coast Guard said the helicopter reportedly was in the process of departing an oil platform when it crashed.
No other details were immediately available.
Helicopter ditchings and crashes are rare but not necessarily uncommon in the offshore industry, which often uses helicopters to ferry workers to and from offshore installations.
In 2013, a helicopter carrying offshore oil and gas contractors crashed off the coast of Venice, Louisiana, killing the pilot and severely injuring two others on board. A year earlier, another helicopter pilot was killed when his aircraft crashed approximately 35 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana.
In 2016, thirteen people were killed when a Super Puma helicopter carrying workers to a Equinor-operated platform in the Norwegian North Sea crashed near Bergen, Norway, making for one of the worst accidents in the history of the Norwegian oil industry.
In 2009, another helicopter, also a Super Puma, crashed off northern Scotland while returning from a BP-operated platform in the North Sea, killing all 16 people on board. In 2014, the UK Civil Aviation Authority announced new measures aimed at increasing the safety of offshore helicopter flights following five crashes in four years involving Super Puma models, including the one from 2009.
