The families of the victims of a fatal helicopter crash in the North Sea three months ago are taking legal action against the owners of the vehicle.

Two pilots and 14 passengers died in the Super Puma helicopter tragedy in April, when it crashed 11 miles off the coast of Peterhead, the Aberdeen Evening Express reports.

It was recently found that the crash could have been avoided and the victims’ families have now launched multi-million pound compensation claims against Bond Offshore Helicopters’ insurers.

Hearings will now go ahead to assess the claims, but if they are successful, the payouts would take into account the age of the men and the number of dependents they had.

At the time, Scottish first minister Alex Salmon said: "It looks like we might be facing the second worst helicopter support incident in history, in terms of the number of fatalities."

The worst was a Chinook crash in 1986 when 45 people died.