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A $5-million expansion to the Survival Systems Training Ltd. facility in Dartmouth is so sophisticated that the company is still pondering the implications, CEO John Swain said Thursday.

“We have a collection of training technologies here that is unique to the industry in the Americas,” Swain said in an interview before the official opening of the facility.

“It is very rewarding to be involved in providing critical safety training for the many men and women working today in ocean environments.”

He said the mix of technologies at the new facility are advanced enough to attract international attention and potentially add export capabilities to the company’s portfolio.

The new marine aviation survival training facility at Survival Systems will allow the 18-year-old company to build on the safety training it provides to the oil and gas, aviation and marine sectors.

The facility at 40 Mount Hope Ave. employs about 25 people.

Swain said it has been operational for only a few weeks and has already garnered industry attention around the world.

“With our new facility, we’ll develop new training programs and advance our (research and development), simulation design and production,” he said.

The facility is designed to create extreme real-life conditions within a controlled environment for safe and effective water survival, underwater egress training and advanced marine research and development.

The Nova Scotia government contributed $450,117 to the expansion through its Productivity Investment Program to help the company buy equipment, including a rescue hoist, dynamic moving ship hull and capsize simulator.

The ocean safety training industry advanced significantly in Atlantic Canada after the loss of the Ocean Ranger drilling rig off the coast of Newfoundland on Feb. 15, 1982. All 84 crew members, most of them Newfoundlanders, were lost.

A call for safety training improvements was among key recommendations from a royal commission that reviewed the disaster.

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” MAST allows workers to train in extreme environments, both safely and repeatedly,” said John Swain, CEO of Survival Systems Training Limited (SSTL).

Imagine you’re in a helicopter on a dark and stormy night, heading to an oil rig 300 km offshore. Fog has blown in on 100 km/hour winds, creating 1.8 metre high waves, and the captain has just said, “Brace for impact.” This is just one of many emergency situations the $6 million, state-of-the-art training facility can recreate.

“Having invested significantly in research, our trainers are able to teach people how to achieve the best possible outcomes in a catastrophic emergency,” continued Mr. Swain.

The new training pool measures 25 metres by 14 metres by 5 metres deep. Swain says the intensity and scale of MAST’s wave technology, with directional wind and rain generation, is unmatched in the world. The facility also features a replica ship hull, rescue hoist, and fast rescue craft capsized simulator.

Driving SSTL’s growth is bringing in export dollars. More than half of its customer base is from outside the region. In the last 12 months, the company has led a customized safety training operation in Korea for Exxon Mobil, preparing its crews for a drilling expedition off the coast of Siberia.

Mr. Swain views the Halifax Gateway as a two-way portal; bringing international companies here and promoting made-in-Halifax solutions on the world stage. “The Halifax Gateway is a champion of increased trade and our business is a leading example of a Nova Scotia company exporting technology to global opportunities,” remarked Mr. Swain.

Over the past two decades, SSTL has trained 100,000 people from around the world, 50,000 at the Dartmouth facility. Clients include Shell, Suncor, Husky, EnCana, Environment Canada, Canadian Forces, and Ornge-Ontario’s Air Ambulance, to name a few.

Located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, SSTL delivers upwards of 70 safety and survival training programs for the aviation, marine, land-based industrial, military and offshore industries. The company has 27 employees.

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Aircraft Ditching Course – Patrick Potter

On May 29, Dustin Whalen, Angus Robertson, Robbie Bennett and I took part in Survival Systems one-day Aircraft Ditching Course for rotary wing aircraft. We spent the morning in a classroom going over the various types of aircraft, suits, gear, the procedure to follow in case of ditching and accounts of previous incidents.

Though the classroom material was relevant, the afternoon is when things got “interesting”. Following a light lunch at the local Tim’s we all donned our swimming trunks and suited up for some time in the pool where we would apply the lessons from the morning. In the pool, our classroom instructor, John Stone, was joined by Nick, a young diver; their job was to keep an eye on us while we went through different scenarios, and to step in if we needed some help. A young woman named Tracy operated the hoist
that raised and lowered the helicopter mock-up and also controlled the orientation of the cockpit (many of our simulations had us inverted underwater). Meanwhile, divers Eric and Rob were lurking at the bottom of the pool to retrieve the doors and windows that we ejected from the simulator during the trials. We all took turns at each exit, becoming familiar with the designs of the different types of helicopter. The instructors performed several half rolls to simulate ditching in shallow water where one side of the chopper would be blocked to exit, very applicable to coastal work We practiced other skills such as launching a life-raft in dark
and windy conditions and moving through the aircraft to reach an exit while underwater in various orientations.

I lost count of how many times we ditched; I think it was between eight and ten. Though I could never get used to someone yelling “Ditching! Ditching! Ditching!” (nor would I want to), I know the repetition helps to achieve the muscle memory necessary to launch into action as soon as possible and egress the aircraft in the event of such an incident.

Having successfully completed the course, I understand how important this training is; as one pilot who had survived ditching his aircraft stated: “if it wasn’t for the training, I’d be done in the first 5 seconds”. It is through repeated training, subsequent visualization and presence of mind while in flight that chances of surviving ditching are maximized. Many thanks go to John, Nick, and the other Survival Systems support staff for a day full of learning and excitement and also to management who supported the training.

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Page 1 Below the Waterline – GSC-A Staff Newsletter – December 2013 Page 15 Below the Waterline – GSC-A Staff Newsletter – June 2014
Photo source: Survival Systems https://www.sstl.com/

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