LONDON — All 19 people aboard a helicopter that crashed in the North Sea on Monday were rescued, British coast guards said.
The helicopter was ferrying workers to shore from an offshore oil rig crash, according to the Associated Press.
The aircraft was still floating on the surface when its occupants were picked up from their life raft and brought aboard a nearby tanker and were later flown to the Orkney Islands, the coast guards said.
Safety has long been a concern with these helicopter flights that energy companies use to move their workers to and from offshore platforms.
The latest incident in a series of accidents and near-misses raised “understandable concerns,” Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said in a statement, hoping an investigation would clear them up.