Alistair Baillie

Helicopter Evacuation of a sick passenger from a Cruise Ship in the North Sea by the Norwegian Coast Guard.

At the time the passenger became ill, the ship was just leaving Norwegian waters and was instructed by UK Coast Guard to turn around and return towards Stavanger, a Norwegian Coast Guard helicopter arrived 50 minutes later and due to strong winds and sea conditions opted to drop a winchman onto the deck and hoist the patient using the hi-line technique. The full operation took less than 5 minutes from helicopter arriving at the ship until the sick passenger was on their way to the hospital.

The relative wind speed across the deck was over 60 kts during the winching operation.