19 rescued after helicopter ditches in North Sea

EDINBURGH - All 19 people were rescued on Monday after the helicopter they boarded ditched in the North Sea in an area northeast of the British mainland, local media reported on Monday.

Alarm was sounded at about 15:30 pm local time when the Super Puma EC 225 helicopter, heading to the West Phoenix drilling rig from Aberdeen, a major city in East Scotland, crashed some 50 kilometers south of Shetland, a subarctic archipelago of Scotland, said the online Scotsman newspaper.

All 17 passengers and two crew were safe following the controlled ditching, according to the Scottish government spokesman.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond praised the emergency services, terming the "swift, professional and highly effective" rescue efforts as "a huge relief to all of the friends, family and colleagues of Scotland's offshore workers".

"Although incidents such as this are mercifully rare, they do raise understandable concerns," said Salmond.

This is the second incident involving the same type of helicopter in the North Sea this year. In May, another Super Puma EC 225 helicopter came down around 48 kilometers off the coast of Aberdeen during a flight to an oil rig. All 14 people on board were rescued.

Helicopters are often used by Energy companies to ferry workers back and forth from rigs to explore large deposits of oil and gas in the North Sea.