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Fifteen oil workers from a helicopter which ditched near a North Sea platform arrived at a port "in good spirits" today.

They were among 18 people rescued last night after the Super Puma helicopter plunged into the sea around 125 miles east of Aberdeen while on the way to a BP production platform.

Three others with minor injuries were flown to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary before being discharged overnight, and a boat carrying the rest of the passengers and crew docked in Aberdeen at around 5.30am.

A spokesman for BP said those on board were in "good shape" and their "spirits were high".

The cause of the accident was not yet known, she told Sky News, adding: "We want to pay tribute to the people who helped us in this incident."

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is launching an investigation into what went wrong, sending nine people up to the city today.

Coastguards described the rescue operation as "textbook", despite foggy and misty conditions out at sea.

The aircraft, with 16 passengers and two crew on board, went down at about 6.40pm yesterday, around 500m from the BP ETAP production platform.

A major search operation involving an RAF Nimrod, RAF Sea King, civilian aircraft and boats was launched as people on the platform raised the alarm.

Michael Coull, watch officer with Aberdeen Coastguard, said the aircraft landed upright with all 18 passengers able to be transferred to liferafts.

He said that none had been in the water.

Three of the passengers were eventually winched to safety by a Bond helicopter which arrived 40 minutes after the accident, while the other 15 were later recovered by a platform lifeboat and transferred to a vessel which made for Aberdeen.

Mr Coull said: "As far as we can ascertain this appears to have been a reasonably controlled ditching - there was no contact with the platform at all.

"From our point of view everything was carried out in a textbook way, if anything like this can be called textbook."

The survivors spent around two hours on board the ship after it docked at Aberdeen Harbour.

During that time they were providing statements to police officers.

Shortly after 7.30am as daylight broke they emerged from the boat, walking the short distance to a waiting bus.

Some of them waved as members of the press looked on, while one was seen giving the thumbs-up.

Minutes later they were driven away from the harbour and into the city.

Rescuers who rushed to the scene saw the tail boom of the downed chopper was missing.

Squadron Leader Barry Neilson, of RAF Kinloss, told today how the drama unfolded after the RAF learned from Aberdeen coastguards that a helicopter had ditched.

An RAF helicopter was scrambled from Lossiemouth, and other helicopters involved included a Bond machine under contract to BP and a Super Puma from the Ekofisk field, Sqd Ldr Neilson told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland.

An RAF Nimrod was also sent to the scene from Kinloss - and part of its role was to keep the rescue helicopters safely apart.

"The last thing we wanted to do was to have two of our search and rescue helicopters collide over the one already in the water," he said.

Of the sight that confronted rescuers, he said: "The aircraft that had ditched was sitting upright on the water, although the tail boom was missing, and the crew and passengers had managed to evacuate the aircraft very successfully and were in their dinghies.

"It was very foggy out there and the first aircraft to arrive on the scene, the BP aircraft, had some difficulty letting down to the surface but succeeded, and lifted three of the crew out of the dinghy."

The three were taken to the oil platform, from where the RAF helicopter took them to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, while the other 15 were taken by lifeboat to the Caledonian Victory.