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6 December 2024
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Rescue operations during helicopter accident on board the motor vessel, Jolly Rubino; a case study by Andrè Tomlinson (FRI Vol 2 no 12)
A view of the Jolly Rubino. Note the angle of the vessel and the surf breaking over the vessel. Photo courtesy of Smit Salvage
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An example of winching operations. The ventilation trunking structure and vacuum plant platform under and in which the crew on the ground took cover can be seen clearly. Photo courtesy of Smit Salvage
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https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri-vol-2-no-11_web.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Rescue operations during helicopter accident on board the motor vessel, Jolly Rubino; a case study written by Andrè Tomlinson (FRI Vol 2 no 12). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Rescue operations during helicopter accident on board the motor vessel, Jolly Rubino
A case study by Andrè Tomlinson
On 23 November 2002 a helicopter on a routine flight delivering a salvage team to the stranded vessel Jolly Rubino crashed onto the deck with 16-crew. What followed was an almost miraculous outcome brought about by the culmination of exceptional circumstances and the unselfish actions of the crewmembers. The following report provides background to the event and details of the actions that took place on that day.
Background
The Jolly Rubino is an Italian-flagged, Roro vessel with a deadweight tonnage of 31 262. On 10 September the vessel departed the Port of Durban en route to Mombasa. Underway, amidst heavy seas and wind, a fire broke out in the vessels engine compartment. Unable to contain the blaze, severely compounded by the extreme weather, the master and crew were forced to abandon the vessel late on 10 September just south of Richards Bay on the Kwa Zulu-Natal coast. Smit Salvage, the world’s largest salvage organisation, was awarded the contract to salvage the vessel. In spite of several attempts to take the vessel under tow, severely hampered by adverse weather and sea conditions, the vessel ran aground approximately one nautical mile from Cape St Lucia, approximately 14km south of the St Lucia Estuary. At the time of the accident the Jolly Rubino carried approximately 11 000 tons of fuel oil, 225 tons of gas oil and 47 containers of hazardous cargo. What followed was a 101-day salvage operation during which it was first attempted to remove the beached vessel and later progressed to safeguard the vessel for permanent residence on the shore through the removal of the hazardous cargo and fuel stocks. During these operations, a large number of salvage and specialist subcontractors including salvers, divers, hazardous material cleanup teams, demolition experts, rescue paramedics and standby crews would partake in an unprecedented operation in South African salvage history.
The event
On Saturday, 23 November at 07h00, a routine salvage team shuttle departed from Richards Bay Airport with a crew of 16 to the Jolly Rubino for the start of day 74 of the salvage operation. Due to the location of the vessel salvage teams were shuttled by means of helicopter, in this case a Super Puma chartered from NAC Helicopters. At 07h26, directly after lowering the second stick of crew, the helicopter suffered a tail rotor failure; the cause has yet to be identified by the Civil Aviation Authorities. The helicopter started to auto-rotate and slammed into the deck. Due to the vessel’s 22 degree angle of list, the helicopter started to slide down the deck toward the sea. The aircraft slid all the way down to the edge of the ship where it fortuitously stopped against a ventilation trunking; an exterior structure that houses the stacks of the lower hold’s ventilation system. Had it passed either forward or aft of the trunking, the aircraft and crew would have been in the surf. The aircraft ended against the housing at a very steep angle, compounded by the ship’s own list, approximately 50 degrees on the horizontal plain. On coming to rest, the pilots closed the turbines off. It is at this time that the pool of jet fuel that had collected in a gutter formed by the ship’s deck ignited. The fire eventually spilled overboard and resulted in the helicopter’s total destruction.
To better appreciate the fortuitous circumstances that contributed to the favourable outcome that day, it should be understood that the vessel, once beached, found itself no less than 200 metres from the high-water mark, in the middle of the surf. This resulted that the seaward side of the vessel (the side the Puma slid towards) was constantly pounded by five to seven metre swells and occasionally up to nine-metre swells during inclement weather. On the morning of the accident, there was almost no surf against the ship. Less than eight hours later, a storm front would move in that lasted the next three days and cause extensive damage to the vessel. Further, the Jolly Rubino’s angle provided a surface not much less steeper than an average stairwell. The slope, combined with surf spray and rain, typically provides for very slippery footing on the deck as well as making passage up and down the ship’s various stairwells, dangerous and exhausting work. Finally, Smit Salvage had as procedure mobilised a safety/rescue boat to stand by at the Jolly Rubino from the beginning of the operation for no other purpose than to recover any staff that may go overboard as a result of an accident or should staff have to abandon the vessel in the event it broke up.
Crew fate
At the time of the accident, hazmat technicians Mike Tsie and Vincent Nkabinde were already on the deck (the first to be lowered), while Simon Papenfus and Henk du Plessis had just unhooked themselves from the winch strops. The balance of the 16 man crew was still onboard the Puma. The disintegration of the tail rotor was immediately heard by the crew on the deck. Looking upward, they were confronted by a helicopter momentarily coming right down at them. Instinctively, the crew took shelter underneath both the closest ventilation trunking and the work platform housing a vacuum plant used in the oil removal operation. Once the Puma hit the deck, the main rotor started to disintegrate resulting in pieces of propeller rocketing into all directions; one lodging itself close to the one crew in the ventilation housing.
On impacting the deck, flight engineer Les Beetge (located in the open door during winching operations) was thrown from the aircraft on the down-slope side of the aircraft. His safety harness, connected to the tie-off point inside the aircraft, as well as the extreme short time span in which events unfolded, prevented Beetge from being able to do anything but being literally pushed by the aircraft down the deck during the Puma’s last stage of travel. Due to his position, Beetge was literally drenched in jet fuel. Once the aircraft came to a rest, Beetge found himself in a position almost underneath the aircraft against the side of the ship. It was in this location trapped in his harness, where he was when the fuel ignited.
Once the helicopter came to a rest, flight officer Dave Peterson and salvage chemist Wolter van der Press, a Dutch national, found themselves right against the ventilation trunking (the other door popped off on impact) when the fuel ignited. Being at this stage the furthest from the up-gradient door, their quickest escape would be through a 400mm by 400mm drainage hole cut in the ventilation housing. Choosing this escape route would put both into sea on the surf side of the vessel. Both immediately bailed through the hole into the surf. In a twist of irony, it was Van der Press that created the hole in the trunking weeks earlier during earlier deck clearing operations in so unknowingly setting the stage for his own survival.
Once the aircraft came to a standstill, both pilot Eddy Brown and co-pilot Martin van der Riet were lightly entrapped by both the deformation of the flight console (the nose wheel punched into the cab) as well as the deformity of the plexi-glass doors. Both Brown and Van der Riet sustained injuries to the legs and had difficulty exiting the cabin once they cut power and fuel to turbines.
The balance of the crew was located in the main cabin of the aircraft at the time of the impact. Once the Puma came to a standstill against the ventilation housing, salvage diver Piet Uys was able to wrench open the up-gradient door that allowed the remaining crew to evacuate safely. Due to the compounded angle of the aircraft and vessel the rapid exit of the crew was purely adrenaline driven considering that almost all sustained some injuries as a result of the violent turns the aircraft made on the way down as well as the impact on the deck. Sometime during the crew’s evacuation from the main cabin the fuel had ignited.
Rescue efforts
The most decisive interventions came in the first seconds after the Puma came to a standstill. Almost all the crew were momentarily incapacitated, some due to the acute angle of the aircraft and others restrained due to either deformed doors or safety equipment. The crew that had already disembarked the helicopter at the time of the accident, immediately set about, even before the rotors stopped turning, to assist the crew still in the wreckage. Two of the flight crew had to be assisted to move away from the wreckage. Les Beetge, restrained by his safety harness and temporarily paralysed, was cut free and dragged from the burning wreckage. Simultaneously, the two crewmembers that bailed into the water were recovered by the ‘My Lady, the standby rescue boat, within seconds of them going overboard.
After the initial recovery of all crew from the wreckage, shelter was sought from the fire and in the event any explosions followed. Once it was obvious that no explosions would follow, the medic and other crews with rescue/emergency medical experience set about to protect and treat the most severely of the injured.
At this time, the alarm that an accident had occurred had gone out to the Smit Salvage operations room in Richards Bay. The Cape St Lucia lighthouse keeper had noticed the smoke column emanating from the Jolly Rubino. Within minutes of the receipt of the alarm, a massive rescue operation was launched that included the dispatch of four helicopters, emergency medical and rescue ground crews, a full trauma team at The Bay hospital, three rescue craft and a fixed wing aircraft on standby.
At the time of the accident, the Titan Aviation Mi8, used in the salvage operation to remove the oil residues from the Jolly Rubino’s cargo deck, was going through its preflight checks in preparation for the day’s work at the St Lucia base. On receipt of the alarm, the Smit Salvage’s operations room immediately dispatched the Mi8 to the Jolly Rubino along with another salvage team member with communications equipment. Arriving at the scene, the Mi8’s crew realised that the prevalence of fire and debris on the deck, compounded by the aircraft’s massive downdraft, would not allow for the aircraft to evacuate the injured directly from the vessel. It was thus decided that the injured would be removed from the vessel to shore by boat from where the air evacuation would be performed. This created a severe exit-dilemma as the only egress from the ship was via two pilots ladders down an estimated 18-metre drop; approximately as high as a six story building). The more ambulatory of the injured were able to climb down the pilot’s ladder and were relocated to shore by the ‘My Lady’ rescue craft.
Fortuitously, the EnviroServ hazmat crew had in their equipment inventory a rope rescue system that was used earlier in the operation to place rigging and anchor points on ship’s exterior hull in preparation for the vacuum operations. With this equipment and a few field improvisations, the salvage team on deck were able to rig a lowering system by which the stretcher cases, Eddy Brown and Les Beetge, were removed down the side of the ship and onto the rescue launches.
Once on shore, all the injured received medical care from the medical rescue crews that had arrived on the numerous helicopters and 4x4 rescue vehicles. After being sorted and stabilised on the beach, the injured were flown to The Bay hospital in Richards Bay in four flights from where all were processed through the casualty department. Worthy of mention is that on Wednesday, 27 November, half of the team – injured and uninjured – were back at work on the Jolly Rubino.
On the shore-side of operations, emergency medical and rescue crews from Richards Bay Emergency Services as well as crews from the KwaZulu-Natal KZN) Ambulance Emergency Services and Netcare911 were dispatched to the scene by helicopter and by road. Several medics were eventually ferried onto the vessel where they assisted the salvage team’s rescue crew with patient stabilisation and packaging. At Netcare’s The Bay Hospital, a full triage plan was activated to assure the prioritising and effective treatment of the injured. A trauma ambulance helicopter, Echo 4 of Star Helicopters, was dispatched from Durban to be on standby at The Bay Hospital in case the more severely injured had to be transferred to trauma centres in Durban. As contingency measure a KZN AEMS fixed-wing aircraft was placed on standby in case of more severe burn cases that may have to be evacuated to definitive care facilities in Cape Town or Johannesburg.
In all, rescue resources included one Titan Aviation Mi 8 helicopter, one NAC Eurocopter, one NAC Super Puma helicopter, the Star medical rescue helicopter, two Smit rescue craft, two NSRI rescue craft, a rescue vehicle and three ambulances from Richards Bay Emergency Services, KZN AEMS and Netcare911 as well as approximately 60 staff (composed of salvers, hazmat technicians, doctors, paramedics, fire fighters, NSRI crew, flight crews and police) hailing from Smit Salvage, EnviroServ Hazmat, Richards Bay Emergency Services, KZN Ambulance Emergency Services, Netcare911, the NSRI, Star helicopters, Titan Aviation, NAC Helicopters and the Richards Bay Public Safety Department.
Significant actions
Probably the greatest contributing factor to the extraordinary outcome of the day was the actions and teamwork of the salvage team and flight crew. While each and every member contributed there are several significant actions that need to be highlighted.
Simon Papenfus is a fire fighter/hazmat technician attached to the Smit Salvage team through EnviroServ Hazmat at the time of the accident. Initially taking cover during the Puma’s impact and downgrade passage (he was on deck at the time of the mishap) Papenfus rushed down the deck once the aircraft came to a standstill and immediately assisted pilots Eddy Brown and Martin van der Riet as well as two crew from the main cabin. Directly following this action flight engineer, Les Beetge, called for help from the opposite side of the wreck. Gaining access to Beetge required Papenfus and salvage engineer Cameron Samuals (himself injured) to first remove a plexiglass door before gaining access by crawling under the side of the wreck of the Puma. On accessing Beetge, Papenfus found that his safety harness restrained him. At this stage, two events occurred ie it was found that Beetge was also incapacitated and the fuel ignited; Beetge and Papenfus were covered in fuel at this time. On getting Beetge released from his harness, Papenfus was able to drag Beetge out of the wreckage where salvage diver Henk du Plessis further assisted to drag Beetge clear of the fire to the shelter of a water tank further up the deck where they weathered the worst of the fire.
Directly following these events, Papenfus and hazmat technician, Gunther Skoberla, who was also on the aircraft and lightly injured, assisted medic, Marcell Naude, to treat the three more serious injured ie flight engineer Les Beetge, pilot Eddy Brown and co-pilot Marc van der Riet. They were relocated to shelter under the bridge until further rescue solutions were identified. It was later agreed that that all casualties were to be removed to the beach. In the case of the above three non-walking casualties, this required that a rope lowering system be set up to evacuate the stretchers to a platform located above the water line on the side of the ship. Papenfus, a high-angle qualified rescue technician, with assistance of Skoberla, set up and a lowering system and instructed the Smit Salvage team members on the system’s operation. As measure to assure a safe and comfortable passage for the stretcher cases down the side of the ship, Papenfus and diver Henk du Plessis acted as stretcher tenders by attaching themselves to the rigging system and ‘walking’ the stretcher down the side of the down the 18 metre freeboard. This drill was repeated three times.
Eddy Brown was the pilot of the Puma. An ex South African Air Force officer, Brown is probably one of the country’s most experienced Puma pilot. Whilst hovering, Brown noticed an object flying up in the corner of his eye. He immediately asked flight engineer, Les Beetge, what the item was. At that moment, the tail rotor disintegrated at which Les announced that the tail rotor was gone. Realising that the importance of controlling the direction of the aircraft’s downward travel was critical to the crew’s survival, Brown slammed the aircraft directly into the deck. Had he delayed for even a few seconds, the aircraft could probably have hit the water on either side of the vessel or the bridge structure; eventualities that may have possibly seen a tragically different outcome.
Marcell Naude is an active paramedic contracted to the project through EnviroServ Hazmat. At the time of the accident, Naude was in the aircraft and one of the first to disembark. Directly following his escape, Naude called for a diving knife to free Les Beetge; eventually not required. Immediately after the worst of the fire; Naude proceeded to stabilise, demobilised and package the most serious of the injured as well as treat the most acute of the walking injured. It should be mentioned that Naude was able perform his duties even though his jump bag, drug kit and pulse oximeter were burnt in the wreck. Naude also took charge of his duties though being a victim himself.
To be mentioned in this context are the actions of divers Piet Uys and Abie Retief that, though both injured themselves, made several exhausting trips to and from the bridge to shuttle emergency medical equipment and rescue stretchers required by Naude and his medical crew.
For 74 days the standby rescue boat ‘My Lady’ had little more to do than provide early morning and late afternoon cover when the daily staff shuttles arrived and departed. In less than 10 minutes, the vessel would justify its existence a thousand fold over. Crewed by skipper, Karl Niemans and salvage diver, Bertus Classens, ‘My Lady’ was holding off on the shore-side of the vessel on the morning of the accident. On witnessing the Puma’s decent, the crew immediately mobilised to the opposite side of the vessel where they found two bodies and in the water where they recovered an almost unconscious and severely shocked salvage chemist Wolter van der Press and immediately afterwards flight engineer Dave Peterson suffering from burns and shock. Later the morning, ‘My Lady’ would be instrumental in ferrying the majority of the crew to shore and rescue crews from shore to the vessel. A footnote should also be given to the St Lucia lighthouse warden Japie Greeff and his wife that witnessed the accident and ensuing fire and continued to calmly notify the Smit ops room and Port of Richards Bay of the accident followed by serving for several hours as observation post and communications relay. Their 18-year old son, Heyman Greeff was on the aircraft that morning to start a week of part-time work.
Summary
Individually and collectively the unselfish actions by a crew, themselves as much victims as rescuers, came together to produce an outcome of events that borders on the miraculous considering both the locations and the fact that helicopter accidents are by their nature almost always fatal. Of special mention are the actions of Simon Papenfus that placed himself willingly and knowingly in harm’s way. Had it not been for his actions, Les Beetge would surely have perished.
The entire Smit Salvage team of 23 November was nominated for the Debis Award.
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Rescue operations during helicopter accident on board the motor vessel, Jolly Rubino; a case study written by Andrè Tomlinson (FRI Vol 2 no 12). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Rescue operations during helicopter accident on board the motor vessel, Jolly Rubino
A case study by Andrè Tomlinson
On 23 November 2002 a helicopter on a routine flight delivering a salvage team to the stranded vessel Jolly Rubino crashed onto the deck with 16-crew. What followed was an almost miraculous outcome brought about by the culmination of exceptional circumstances and the unselfish actions of the crewmembers. The following report provides background to the event and details of the actions that took place on that day.
Background
The Jolly Rubino is an Italian-flagged, Roro vessel with a deadweight tonnage of 31 262. On 10 September the vessel departed the Port of Durban en route to Mombasa. Underway, amidst heavy seas and wind, a fire broke out in the vessels engine compartment. Unable to contain the blaze, severely compounded by the extreme weather, the master and crew were forced to abandon the vessel late on 10 September just south of Richards Bay on the Kwa Zulu-Natal coast. Smit Salvage, the world’s largest salvage organisation, was awarded the contract to salvage the vessel. In spite of several attempts to take the vessel under tow, severely hampered by adverse weather and sea conditions, the vessel ran aground approximately one nautical mile from Cape St Lucia, approximately 14km south of the St Lucia Estuary. At the time of the accident the Jolly Rubino carried approximately 11 000 tons of fuel oil, 225 tons of gas oil and 47 containers of hazardous cargo. What followed was a 101-day salvage operation during which it was first attempted to remove the beached vessel and later progressed to safeguard the vessel for permanent residence on the shore through the removal of the hazardous cargo and fuel stocks. During these operations, a large number of salvage and specialist subcontractors including salvers, divers, hazardous material cleanup teams, demolition experts, rescue paramedics and standby crews would partake in an unprecedented operation in South African salvage history.
The event
On Saturday, 23 November at 07h00, a routine salvage team shuttle departed from Richards Bay Airport with a crew of 16 to the Jolly Rubino for the start of day 74 of the salvage operation. Due to the location of the vessel salvage teams were shuttled by means of helicopter, in this case a Super Puma chartered from NAC Helicopters. At 07h26, directly after lowering the second stick of crew, the helicopter suffered a tail rotor failure; the cause has yet to be identified by the Civil Aviation Authorities. The helicopter started to auto-rotate and slammed into the deck. Due to the vessel’s 22 degree angle of list, the helicopter started to slide down the deck toward the sea. The aircraft slid all the way down to the edge of the ship where it fortuitously stopped against a ventilation trunking; an exterior structure that houses the stacks of the lower hold’s ventilation system. Had it passed either forward or aft of the trunking, the aircraft and crew would have been in the surf. The aircraft ended against the housing at a very steep angle, compounded by the ship’s own list, approximately 50 degrees on the horizontal plain. On coming to rest, the pilots closed the turbines off. It is at this time that the pool of jet fuel that had collected in a gutter formed by the ship’s deck ignited. The fire eventually spilled overboard and resulted in the helicopter’s total destruction.
To better appreciate the fortuitous circumstances that contributed to the favourable outcome that day, it should be understood that the vessel, once beached, found itself no less than 200 metres from the high-water mark, in the middle of the surf. This resulted that the seaward side of the vessel (the side the Puma slid towards) was constantly pounded by five to seven metre swells and occasionally up to nine-metre swells during inclement weather. On the morning of the accident, there was almost no surf against the ship. Less than eight hours later, a storm front would move in that lasted the next three days and cause extensive damage to the vessel. Further, the Jolly Rubino’s angle provided a surface not much less steeper than an average stairwell. The slope, combined with surf spray and rain, typically provides for very slippery footing on the deck as well as making passage up and down the ship’s various stairwells, dangerous and exhausting work. Finally, Smit Salvage had as procedure mobilised a safety/rescue boat to stand by at the Jolly Rubino from the beginning of the operation for no other purpose than to recover any staff that may go overboard as a result of an accident or should staff have to abandon the vessel in the event it broke up.
Crew fate
At the time of the accident, hazmat technicians Mike Tsie and Vincent Nkabinde were already on the deck (the first to be lowered), while Simon Papenfus and Henk du Plessis had just unhooked themselves from the winch strops. The balance of the 16 man crew was still onboard the Puma. The disintegration of the tail rotor was immediately heard by the crew on the deck. Looking upward, they were confronted by a helicopter momentarily coming right down at them. Instinctively, the crew took shelter underneath both the closest ventilation trunking and the work platform housing a vacuum plant used in the oil removal operation. Once the Puma hit the deck, the main rotor started to disintegrate resulting in pieces of propeller rocketing into all directions; one lodging itself close to the one crew in the ventilation housing.
On impacting the deck, flight engineer Les Beetge (located in the open door during winching operations) was thrown from the aircraft on the down-slope side of the aircraft. His safety harness, connected to the tie-off point inside the aircraft, as well as the extreme short time span in which events unfolded, prevented Beetge from being able to do anything but being literally pushed by the aircraft down the deck during the Puma’s last stage of travel. Due to his position, Beetge was literally drenched in jet fuel. Once the aircraft came to a rest, Beetge found himself in a position almost underneath the aircraft against the side of the ship. It was in this location trapped in his harness, where he was when the fuel ignited.
Once the helicopter came to a rest, flight officer Dave Peterson and salvage chemist Wolter van der Press, a Dutch national, found themselves right against the ventilation trunking (the other door popped off on impact) when the fuel ignited. Being at this stage the furthest from the up-gradient door, their quickest escape would be through a 400mm by 400mm drainage hole cut in the ventilation housing. Choosing this escape route would put both into sea on the surf side of the vessel. Both immediately bailed through the hole into the surf. In a twist of irony, it was Van der Press that created the hole in the trunking weeks earlier during earlier deck clearing operations in so unknowingly setting the stage for his own survival.
Once the aircraft came to a standstill, both pilot Eddy Brown and co-pilot Martin van der Riet were lightly entrapped by both the deformation of the flight console (the nose wheel punched into the cab) as well as the deformity of the plexi-glass doors. Both Brown and Van der Riet sustained injuries to the legs and had difficulty exiting the cabin once they cut power and fuel to turbines.
The balance of the crew was located in the main cabin of the aircraft at the time of the impact. Once the Puma came to a standstill against the ventilation housing, salvage diver Piet Uys was able to wrench open the up-gradient door that allowed the remaining crew to evacuate safely. Due to the compounded angle of the aircraft and vessel the rapid exit of the crew was purely adrenaline driven considering that almost all sustained some injuries as a result of the violent turns the aircraft made on the way down as well as the impact on the deck. Sometime during the crew’s evacuation from the main cabin the fuel had ignited.
Rescue efforts
The most decisive interventions came in the first seconds after the Puma came to a standstill. Almost all the crew were momentarily incapacitated, some due to the acute angle of the aircraft and others restrained due to either deformed doors or safety equipment. The crew that had already disembarked the helicopter at the time of the accident, immediately set about, even before the rotors stopped turning, to assist the crew still in the wreckage. Two of the flight crew had to be assisted to move away from the wreckage. Les Beetge, restrained by his safety harness and temporarily paralysed, was cut free and dragged from the burning wreckage. Simultaneously, the two crewmembers that bailed into the water were recovered by the ‘My Lady, the standby rescue boat, within seconds of them going overboard.
After the initial recovery of all crew from the wreckage, shelter was sought from the fire and in the event any explosions followed. Once it was obvious that no explosions would follow, the medic and other crews with rescue/emergency medical experience set about to protect and treat the most severely of the injured.
At this time, the alarm that an accident had occurred had gone out to the Smit Salvage operations room in Richards Bay. The Cape St Lucia lighthouse keeper had noticed the smoke column emanating from the Jolly Rubino. Within minutes of the receipt of the alarm, a massive rescue operation was launched that included the dispatch of four helicopters, emergency medical and rescue ground crews, a full trauma team at The Bay hospital, three rescue craft and a fixed wing aircraft on standby.
At the time of the accident, the Titan Aviation Mi8, used in the salvage operation to remove the oil residues from the Jolly Rubino’s cargo deck, was going through its preflight checks in preparation for the day’s work at the St Lucia base. On receipt of the alarm, the Smit Salvage’s operations room immediately dispatched the Mi8 to the Jolly Rubino along with another salvage team member with communications equipment. Arriving at the scene, the Mi8’s crew realised that the prevalence of fire and debris on the deck, compounded by the aircraft’s massive downdraft, would not allow for the aircraft to evacuate the injured directly from the vessel. It was thus decided that the injured would be removed from the vessel to shore by boat from where the air evacuation would be performed. This created a severe exit-dilemma as the only egress from the ship was via two pilots ladders down an estimated 18-metre drop; approximately as high as a six story building). The more ambulatory of the injured were able to climb down the pilot’s ladder and were relocated to shore by the ‘My Lady’ rescue craft.
Fortuitously, the EnviroServ hazmat crew had in their equipment inventory a rope rescue system that was used earlier in the operation to place rigging and anchor points on ship’s exterior hull in preparation for the vacuum operations. With this equipment and a few field improvisations, the salvage team on deck were able to rig a lowering system by which the stretcher cases, Eddy Brown and Les Beetge, were removed down the side of the ship and onto the rescue launches.
Once on shore, all the injured received medical care from the medical rescue crews that had arrived on the numerous helicopters and 4x4 rescue vehicles. After being sorted and stabilised on the beach, the injured were flown to The Bay hospital in Richards Bay in four flights from where all were processed through the casualty department. Worthy of mention is that on Wednesday, 27 November, half of the team – injured and uninjured – were back at work on the Jolly Rubino.
On the shore-side of operations, emergency medical and rescue crews from Richards Bay Emergency Services as well as crews from the KwaZulu-Natal KZN) Ambulance Emergency Services and Netcare911 were dispatched to the scene by helicopter and by road. Several medics were eventually ferried onto the vessel where they assisted the salvage team’s rescue crew with patient stabilisation and packaging. At Netcare’s The Bay Hospital, a full triage plan was activated to assure the prioritising and effective treatment of the injured. A trauma ambulance helicopter, Echo 4 of Star Helicopters, was dispatched from Durban to be on standby at The Bay Hospital in case the more severely injured had to be transferred to trauma centres in Durban. As contingency measure a KZN AEMS fixed-wing aircraft was placed on standby in case of more severe burn cases that may have to be evacuated to definitive care facilities in Cape Town or Johannesburg.
In all, rescue resources included one Titan Aviation Mi 8 helicopter, one NAC Eurocopter, one NAC Super Puma helicopter, the Star medical rescue helicopter, two Smit rescue craft, two NSRI rescue craft, a rescue vehicle and three ambulances from Richards Bay Emergency Services, KZN AEMS and Netcare911 as well as approximately 60 staff (composed of salvers, hazmat technicians, doctors, paramedics, fire fighters, NSRI crew, flight crews and police) hailing from Smit Salvage, EnviroServ Hazmat, Richards Bay Emergency Services, KZN Ambulance Emergency Services, Netcare911, the NSRI, Star helicopters, Titan Aviation, NAC Helicopters and the Richards Bay Public Safety Department.
Significant actions
Probably the greatest contributing factor to the extraordinary outcome of the day was the actions and teamwork of the salvage team and flight crew. While each and every member contributed there are several significant actions that need to be highlighted.
Simon Papenfus is a fire fighter/hazmat technician attached to the Smit Salvage team through EnviroServ Hazmat at the time of the accident. Initially taking cover during the Puma’s impact and downgrade passage (he was on deck at the time of the mishap) Papenfus rushed down the deck once the aircraft came to a standstill and immediately assisted pilots Eddy Brown and Martin van der Riet as well as two crew from the main cabin. Directly following this action flight engineer, Les Beetge, called for help from the opposite side of the wreck. Gaining access to Beetge required Papenfus and salvage engineer Cameron Samuals (himself injured) to first remove a plexiglass door before gaining access by crawling under the side of the wreck of the Puma. On accessing Beetge, Papenfus found that his safety harness restrained him. At this stage, two events occurred ie it was found that Beetge was also incapacitated and the fuel ignited; Beetge and Papenfus were covered in fuel at this time. On getting Beetge released from his harness, Papenfus was able to drag Beetge out of the wreckage where salvage diver Henk du Plessis further assisted to drag Beetge clear of the fire to the shelter of a water tank further up the deck where they weathered the worst of the fire.
Directly following these events, Papenfus and hazmat technician, Gunther Skoberla, who was also on the aircraft and lightly injured, assisted medic, Marcell Naude, to treat the three more serious injured ie flight engineer Les Beetge, pilot Eddy Brown and co-pilot Marc van der Riet. They were relocated to shelter under the bridge until further rescue solutions were identified. It was later agreed that that all casualties were to be removed to the beach. In the case of the above three non-walking casualties, this required that a rope lowering system be set up to evacuate the stretchers to a platform located above the water line on the side of the ship. Papenfus, a high-angle qualified rescue technician, with assistance of Skoberla, set up and a lowering system and instructed the Smit Salvage team members on the system’s operation. As measure to assure a safe and comfortable passage for the stretcher cases down the side of the ship, Papenfus and diver Henk du Plessis acted as stretcher tenders by attaching themselves to the rigging system and ‘walking’ the stretcher down the side of the down the 18 metre freeboard. This drill was repeated three times.
Eddy Brown was the pilot of the Puma. An ex South African Air Force officer, Brown is probably one of the country’s most experienced Puma pilot. Whilst hovering, Brown noticed an object flying up in the corner of his eye. He immediately asked flight engineer, Les Beetge, what the item was. At that moment, the tail rotor disintegrated at which Les announced that the tail rotor was gone. Realising that the importance of controlling the direction of the aircraft’s downward travel was critical to the crew’s survival, Brown slammed the aircraft directly into the deck. Had he delayed for even a few seconds, the aircraft could probably have hit the water on either side of the vessel or the bridge structure; eventualities that may have possibly seen a tragically different outcome.
Marcell Naude is an active paramedic contracted to the project through EnviroServ Hazmat. At the time of the accident, Naude was in the aircraft and one of the first to disembark. Directly following his escape, Naude called for a diving knife to free Les Beetge; eventually not required. Immediately after the worst of the fire; Naude proceeded to stabilise, demobilised and package the most serious of the injured as well as treat the most acute of the walking injured. It should be mentioned that Naude was able perform his duties even though his jump bag, drug kit and pulse oximeter were burnt in the wreck. Naude also took charge of his duties though being a victim himself.
To be mentioned in this context are the actions of divers Piet Uys and Abie Retief that, though both injured themselves, made several exhausting trips to and from the bridge to shuttle emergency medical equipment and rescue stretchers required by Naude and his medical crew.
For 74 days the standby rescue boat ‘My Lady’ had little more to do than provide early morning and late afternoon cover when the daily staff shuttles arrived and departed. In less than 10 minutes, the vessel would justify its existence a thousand fold over. Crewed by skipper, Karl Niemans and salvage diver, Bertus Classens, ‘My Lady’ was holding off on the shore-side of the vessel on the morning of the accident. On witnessing the Puma’s decent, the crew immediately mobilised to the opposite side of the vessel where they found two bodies and in the water where they recovered an almost unconscious and severely shocked salvage chemist Wolter van der Press and immediately afterwards flight engineer Dave Peterson suffering from burns and shock. Later the morning, ‘My Lady’ would be instrumental in ferrying the majority of the crew to shore and rescue crews from shore to the vessel. A footnote should also be given to the St Lucia lighthouse warden Japie Greeff and his wife that witnessed the accident and ensuing fire and continued to calmly notify the Smit ops room and Port of Richards Bay of the accident followed by serving for several hours as observation post and communications relay. Their 18-year old son, Heyman Greeff was on the aircraft that morning to start a week of part-time work.
Summary
Individually and collectively the unselfish actions by a crew, themselves as much victims as rescuers, came together to produce an outcome of events that borders on the miraculous considering both the locations and the fact that helicopter accidents are by their nature almost always fatal. Of special mention are the actions of Simon Papenfus that placed himself willingly and knowingly in harm’s way. Had it not been for his actions, Les Beetge would surely have perished.
The entire Smit Salvage team of 23 November was nominated for the Debis Award.
