Inquest begins into helicopter crash which killed North men

Mar 11 2009 by Paul James, The Journal

A TYNESIDE man survived a horrific helicopter crash but drowned after the vessel plunged into the Irish Sea, an inquest heard.

Jurors were told Leslie Ahmed, from South Shields, was the only one of seven people in the chopper not to be killed by multiple injuries caused by the force of the crash.

But the 48-year-old gas platform worker drowned in the icy waters of the Irish Sea after the helicopter crashed just after 6.30pm on December 27, 2006.

He was killed alongside colleague Alfred Neasham, 57, from Durham. Fellow North Eastener Keith Smith, 57, from Stockton-on-Tees, also died, but his body has never been found.

The inquest heard other workers Robert Warburton, 60, of Lancashire, and John Shaw, 51, from Scotland, were also killed, along with Co-pilot Simon Foddering, 33, from Preston, and commander Stephen Potton, 52, from Blackpool.

Jurors at Blackpool Town Hall were told the SA365N Dauphin plunged into the Irish Sea while flying from Blackpool between gas platforms when it got into difficulties on its final approach to its third stop, the Centrica North Morecambe platform, 25 miles out from Morecambe Bay.

Families of the gas platform workers and pilots packed in to at the start of the three-day inquest led by coroner Anne Hind.

The jury of six men and five women heard evidence from Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) experts. Accident investigators presented their published preliminary report about the crash to the jury, the assembled families and legal representatives.