Sikorsky S-92

Updated: October 2026 – A hulking helicopter with four broad rotor blades, red-and-white paint and small stub wings on the fuselage passes over the cliffs of the Scottish coast: there is a good chance you have just seen a Sikorsky S-92. The American heavy helicopter has been one of the North Sea’s workhorses for two decades, takes crews to drilling rigs and stands ready for the British coast guard around the clock for rescue missions. Here you learn how the S-92 came about, what setbacks it has suffered, how to recognize it and where you are most likely to get it in front of your lens.

What is the Sikorsky S-92?

The S-92 is a twin-engine heavy helicopter with a maximum takeoff weight of about 12.6 tonnes. Sikorsky developed it in the late 1990s as a civil helicopter for long flights over water, with a large cabin and generous reserves. Technically it builds on the S-70 family, which also includes the UH-60 Black Hawk: rotor and flight control components were taken from there and developed further.

Two General Electric CT7-8A turboshafts deliver about 2,520 shp each. The civil cabin holds 19 passengers, the utility version up to 22 people. Cruising speed is given as about 280 km/h, and the range is just under 1,000 kilometers. The four-blade, fully articulated main rotor measures a good 17 meters in diameter, and the fuselage is almost 21 meters long. That puts the S-92 a weight class above the Airbus H175 and roughly in the league of the H225.

The S-92 is built and fitted out in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Cabin assemblies come from India from a joint venture with Tata. Since 2015 Sikorsky has belonged to Lockheed Martin; the engines are supplied by GE Aerospace.

From Black Hawk technology to offshore giant

The S-92 made its first flight on December 23, 1998, at Sikorsky’s development center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Certification dragged on: the US aviation authority FAA granted type certification under Part 29 on December 19, 2002, and European certification by the JAA and EASA followed on June 8, 2004. In late 2004 the US offshore operator PHI took over the first aircraft.

One point of the certification weighed heavily later. Large transport helicopters are actually required to demonstrate that their main gearbox keeps running for 30 minutes after a loss of oil. The S-92A failed this so-called “run-dry” test in 2003. It was certified anyway because the authority rated a total loss of oil as extremely unlikely.

Year	Event
1998	First flight at West Palm Beach
2002	FAA type certification
2004	JAA/EASA certification, first delivery to PHI
2009	Cougar Flight 91 off Newfoundland, gearbox retrofit
2012	Irish Coast Guard switches to the S-92
2015	Bristow takes over the British rescue service, with the S-92 among others
2024	Second generation of the British SAR contract starts

Cougar Flight 91 and the consequences

On March 12, 2009, an S-92A operated by Cougar Helicopters with 18 people on board was on its way to oil fields off Newfoundland. About 55 kilometers from St. John’s, the oil pressure in the main gearbox dropped, the crew sent a distress call and tried to turn back. The aircraft crashed into the sea, 17 people died, and only one passenger survived.

The Canadian investigation agency TSB found a broken titanium stud on the gearbox oil filter. After an incident in Australia, Sikorsky had already recommended replacing these studs with steel parts. After the crash the FAA made the replacement mandatory, and the emergency procedures for gearbox oil loss were tightened. The final report named a whole series of interacting factors.

Another serious accident hit Ireland in 2017: the S-92 with the callsign Rescue 116 of the Irish Coast Guard hit an island off the west coast in bad weather on March 14, 2017. All four crew members died. In February 2024, an S-92A of Bristow Norway also crashed west of Bergen; one person died.

Sikorsky has meanwhile tackled the gearbox issue at its root: according to Lockheed Martin, the S-92A+ gets a new main gearbox (Phase IV) with an auxiliary lubrication system that kicks in if main oil pressure is lost.

The three features that are enough to identify it

Large offshore and rescue helicopters look alike from a distance. With the S-92, three observations help you.

The final certainty comes from the registration. In the North Sea, S-92s often fly with British (G-) or Norwegian (LN-) registrations. How the British register works is in the article British G registrations; the basics are explained in Understanding aircraft registrations.

S-92, H225, AW189 or AW101?

In the offshore and rescue world, the S-92 shares the sky mainly with the H225, the AW189 and – in the government sector – the three-engine Leonardo AW101. The finder helps you narrow it down.

The guide Identifying helicopter types goes deeper into identifying rotary-wing aircraft – with blade count, tail rotor design and landing gear as the most important criteria.

Operations in the North Sea

The North Sea is the territory where the S-92 grew up. Oil and gas fields here often lie far off the coast, the weather is rough, and crews change in fixed rotations. This is exactly what the big Sikorsky is built for: many seats, long range, reserves for detours and holding patterns.

The best-known operators include Bristow and CHC, which use the S-92 in both the UK and Norway. In Norway the helicopters fly out to the fields from coastal airports such as Bergen-Flesland, among others. If you stand at the fence there, you regularly see offshore rotors take off and land next to scheduled jets.

Location	Chance of a hit	Why
Offshore airports in Norway (e.g. Bergen)	high	Crew flights to oil and gas fields
Offshore bases in Scotland	high	Main market of the type in the UK
HM Coastguard coastal bases	medium to high	S-92 on constant standby
German airports	low	Ferry flights and exceptions

Offshore helicopters mostly transmit ADS-B data and show up in flight tracking services. How to search specifically for such flights is shown in the article Finding helicopters on the flight tracker.

Maritime rescue in the UK and Ireland

Since 2015, the civil helicopter rescue service in the UK has been in the hands of Bristow, flying on behalf of HM Coastguard. Before that, the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy had largely performed this task. Bristow uses the S-92 and AW189 for it. In 2022 Bristow also won the second-generation follow-on contract (UKSAR2G), which started in November 2024.

According to available information, S-92s are stationed at several bases, including Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides and Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands, but also sites such as Humberside, Newquay and Caernarfon. The assignment can change with maintenance rotations. The red-and-white aircraft with “Coastguard” titles are among the most photogenic S-92s of all.

In Ireland, CHC flew the S-92 for the Irish Coast Guard from 2012, based in Dublin, Shannon, Waterford and Sligo. In August 2025 a new contract started with Bristow Ireland and six AW189s; the S-92s are being phased out step by step. For spotters in Ireland, the S-92 in coast guard service thus becomes a piece of recent history.

Military and government variants

Several derivatives have emerged from the S-92. The H-92 Superhawk is the military base version with fly-by-wire controls and more powerful CT7-8C engines. From it came the CH-148 Cyclone for the Canadian Armed Forces, which flies as a shipboard helicopter on frigates. The US Marine Corps uses the VH-92 as the presidential helicopter under the “Marine One” program.

In addition, S-92s fly with governments and air forces in several countries as VIP or state helicopters; Lockheed Martin speaks of 13 states using them to transport heads of state. Such aircraft occasionally turn up in Europe during state visits and summits and are then a real rarity. How to judge how special your sighting is is explained in the article How rare is my sighting?. Anyone photographing military variants should know the advice in Photographing military airfields: rules.

Photo tips specifically for the S-92

With helicopters, the shutter speed decides. Four blades fill the rotor disc more slowly than five, so with the S-92 too short an exposure quickly looks like a “parked” rotor in the air.

The technique is the same as with propeller aircraft; details are in the guide Photographing propellers: the right shutter speed. The article Windy and other weather maps helps with planning, and you can find general tips under Helicopter spotting. With the sun position planner and the weather and wind data in Planetrack, you see before the tour which direction the light and the approach come from.

Common mix-ups and how to rule them out

The heavy transport helicopters of the CH-53 family also carry the Sikorsky name, but are much larger and have more rotor blades. You will hardly confuse an S-92 with them.

Conclusion

The S-92 is a specialist for long flights over rough seas: large, rugged and built with reserves. Its history has dark chapters, from the gearbox problem on Cougar Flight 91 to the crash of Rescue 116, but also over 20 years of reliable everyday service in the North Sea. For spotters it is a familiar sight in Norway and the UK, but a rather rare encounter in central Europe. Four main rotor blades, the side landing gear sponsons and the tall fuselage give you the type, and the registration the confirmation.