"I felt guilty I survived": Chinook captain remembers North Sea disaster that killed 45, forty years on

The captain of a Chinook helicopter that crashed into the North Sea 40 years ago, killing 45 people, has spoken of the guilt he has carried as one of only two survivors.

The disaster off the coast of Shetland on November 6, 1986, claimed the lives of 43 passengers and two crew. It remains the UK's worst helicopter disaster.

Relatives, survivors and offshore workers are gathering in Aberdeen on Saturday for a memorial service marking the 40th anniversary.

A twist of fate

Captain Pushp Vaid, then aged 45, and 20-year-old oil worker Eric Morrans were the only people who survived.

Mr Vaid was at the controls of the Boeing Vertol Chinook on a return journey from the Brent oilfield to Sumburgh Airport. In a tragic twist of fate, he was flying with co-pilot Neville Nixon, who had swapped shifts that morning to gain extra flying time after spending a few years away.

He recalled that a last-minute stop at Brent Alpha to deliver a package had added around ten minutes to the journey. "If that third landing was not there, it would have been on the ground," he told STV News.

"The two rotors were hitting each other"

"The front gearbox broke up and the two rotors were hitting each other," he said.

"I could see the sky. It was as if I was a fighter pilot going vertically up, but we were going vertically backwards. Then I pushed the cyclic forward and I could see the sea again."

When the aircraft hit the water, the main cabin took the brunt of the impact while the cockpit broke away. Mr Vaid escaped the flooding cockpit through a window and surfaced, clinging to wreckage as he waited for others to emerge.

By coincidence, a Coastguard rescue helicopter was taking off from nearby Sumburgh Airport on a training exercise, allowing rescuers to reach the scene almost immediately. Mr Morrans, a trainee technician, was also winched to safety within ten minutes.

It was only later, in hospital in Shetland, that Mr Vaid asked doctors if anyone else had survived and was told that only two people had made it out alive.

Gearbox failure

Lifeboats and other vessels joined the search, but no other survivors were found. A major recovery operation followed to bring back the victims and salvage the wreckage from the seabed.

Investigators later found that the helicopter had suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure, which caused its twin rotors to become desynchronised and collide.

The disaster remains the deadliest helicopter accident in British aviation history. It had a profound impact on the offshore oil and gas industry, and led to the withdrawal of Chinooks from offshore passenger flights.

"I used to feel guilty that I was alive"

Forty years on, Mr Vaid still struggles with having survived when so many others did not.

"I used to feel guilty that I was alive. I was in charge of the whole aircraft as the captain," he said. "For a year I couldn't get over it. I still go to church, to temple, wherever God is."

Despite the trauma, he eventually returned to flying after medical and psychological assessments, and went on to fly helicopters for another 20 years.

Remembering the 45

For families across Shetland, Aberdeen and beyond, the anniversary is a moment to remember the 45 people who never came home – and a reminder of the risks faced by the thousands of workers who still fly offshore every day.