Chevron: Wreckage from offshore Angola found

A subsidiary of Chevron said search teams found some of the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed offshore Angola last month with six people on board.

Chevron said last week that a helicopter with five passengers and a pilot crashed on its way to the Tombua-Landana facility off the coast of Angola.

A spokesperson told UPI that search teams had uncovered some of the wreckage of the Bell 430 helicopter that went missing one week ago while on a routine flight.

"Divers found the body of one of the two missing personnel and are working to find the last missing person," the spokesperson said.

One of the passengers was employed by Chevron's regional subsidiary, while others were serving as contractors for the company. The company said the resources assigned to the search effort were "substantial" and included subsea and aerial surveillance.

Chevron's subsidiary in the region started oil and gas production last year from the Lianzi field in a unified offshore economic zone straddling the borders of Congo and Angola. The project was the first in the region to start operations for Chevron and the first cross-border development in Africa.

The company offered no update on whether offshore operations were impacted by the incident.

Chevron's is the second such incident involving helicopter transport to offshore oil facilities. A helicopter used by Norwegian energy company Statoil crashed in April on its way to the Gulfaks B with 13 people on board.

Statoil said the organization of helicopter safety was complicated because of the number of players involved, each of whom have a varying degree of understanding about their role in the work.

Chevron said the incident investigation is ongoing alongside third-party experts and Angolan authorities.