Helicopter with 14 people on board ditches into North Sea off Scotland

ABERDEEN, Scotland – A helicopter with 14 people on board ditched into the sea Thursday, 30 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Two rescue helicopters winched the majority of the passengers and crew to safety from the life raft they were all in after the helicopter made a "controlled ditching" at around 12:30pm local time.

But some of the passengers refused to get back into a helicopter and were rescued by a lifeboat instead.

They were expected to be taken to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for treatment.

The helicopter, a Super Puma EC225, was owned by Aberdeen offshore helicopter firm Bond, which specializes in helicopter transports to oil platforms in the North Sea.

It was ferrying workers to ConocoPhillips-leased drilling rigs on the Jasmine field, Dow Jones reported. It was unknown if they were direct employees of the company or third-party contractors.

It was the third time in the last three years that a Bond helicopter ditched into the North Sea.

In April 2009, all 16 people on board a Bond Super Puma were killed when it crashed off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland.

Six weeks earlier, another Bond EC225 helicopter ditched near a BP installation 125 miles east of Aberdeen. All 18 on board were rescued.

Bond recently temporarily grounded its fleet of smaller Eurocopter EC135 helicopters over safety concerns.