THE REAL HELICOPTER–AND NO WATER LANDING: Part One
In MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS, the opening scene takes place around an oil rig some 37 miles off Ghana’s coast. There are two dead bodies in a canoe and therefore it is a crime scene. How did the bodies get there? As thorough as he is, Inspector Dawson decides he must visit the rig, even though he has a deadly fear of water and must go through the BOISIET. Following my principle of “experience everything my characters do” (except the whole murder thing), I too wanted to visit a rig.
The first Monday morning in Ghana, not 24 hours after I’d arrived, was the day I was to hopefully not use my newly learned escape procedures (see previous blogs). I was ready for my expedition to the West Leo oil rig in the Gulf of Guinea: BOISIET certificate, check; OGUK medical certificate, check; passport, check. We were to fly from Accra, the capital of Ghana, to Takoradi, from which airport base the helicopters make their flights to and from the rig.
At six thirty sharp, I was picked up and shuttled to the Accra’s Kotoka Airport accompanied by Fraser, a friend of mine and senior drilling engineer who helped me with the technical details in the novel, and another “PR” visitor to the rig. The oil company has its own check-in area at the airport domestic terminal, but that doesn’t mean that all the normal security screening procedures aren’t carried out rigorously. Everything is by the book. The passengers were all rig workers going to different deep sea installations off the Cape Three Points coast.
The aircraft, a two-propeller Beech 1900D, seats about twenty-two people, so with about eighteen passengers, was lmost full. If I had any doubts about the power of the Beech, they were dispelled as the little plane made its takeoff run and had me flattened against my seat. Forty-five minutes later, we landed at the airport in Takoradi. As you can see from the photo below, it’s a very small airport, but it has historical importance in that it was used by the Allied Forces during WWII as an assembly station for military aircraft that flew across the vast Sahara desert to reach Egypt, since Germany and Italy had the Mediterranean blockaded. Although this isn’t generally known, the “Takoradi Run” made a significant contribution to winning the war.
TAKORADI AIRPORT (Photo by Puneetsharma, Panaromio)
If the security screening was up to standard at the Accra airport, it was above that at Takoradi, in some ways because the airport is on a military base. My BOISIET and medical were examined, and along with the rig workers, I was prodded, patted down, magic-wanded, the whole nine. Everyone is required to watch the safety video before boarding the helicopter. The video went over much of the same principles to which I had been introduced during my BOISIET classes. Then we donned our life jackets and headed for the helicopter.
NHV HELICOPTERS COMMONLY USED BY OIL COMPANIES (Photo courtesy Tullowoil.com)
