The employees of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC) have written a letter to the top management asking for enhancement in safety measures while flying to and from offshore sites on board the state-owned helicopter service.
This comes more than a month after a Pawan Hans helicopter crashed while heading towards ONGC's north field with seven persons onboard. Five senior ONGC officials and two pilots died in the accident.
In the letter, the Petroleum Employees Union (PEU) wrote: “After the occurrence of the tragedy, every crew member performing offshore duty and their family members are under tremendous pressure regarding safety of their son/husband/father on offshore duty." The subject line of the letter read, “Flying Coffins”, reported The Indian Express.
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Speaking to the newspaper, Nitin Khanvilkar, General Secretary of the PEU, which represents nearly 2500 of the 4500 employees of the western offshore unit (Mumbai) of the Maharatna oil firm, said the employees were not against Pawan Hans, but wanted better safety measures.
An official ONGC statement, said that measures have been taken to enhance the security. “We have taken measures to ensure safety and security of the employees working offshore. In meetings between the employees and Director, Off Shore, the concerns of employees were addressed,” the official statement read, according to the newspaper report.
The chopper, Dauphin N3, bearing registration number VT-PWA, had taken off from Juhu aerodrome on January 13. The chopper was scheduled to land at the designated oil rig at Mumbai High.
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The ONGC has key oil and gas fields off the Mumbai coast and Pawan Hans helicopters routinely ferry company employees and officers to the oil installations that are situated as far as 160 kilometres from the coastline.
The field in the offshore include Mumbai High, the nation's largest oil field and Bassein fields, the largest gas field.
