Thanks West Indian - I'm Saban living in the US and appreciate your comments. This is truly a shocking situation and my condolences go out to both families.
I worry all the time about the 'what ifs' with my family on Saba, and 'what if' my Dad or Mom had an emergency in the middle of the night. The last time someone in my family had an emergency, they were 'fortunate' that it a) happened during the operating hours of the airport and b) the wx was well enough for the plane to land, and transport them to SXM.
When my family have been referring to 'the helicopter' I was envisioning one similar to that which had been operating in the 90s (which I also believe went on to crash in the French West Indies), but it was a much larger heli (i.e. patient could remain on stretcher). Now I'm doubly concerned and just wonder if the best thing is to just go by boat (wx permitting) if heaven forbid anything were to happen.
As for setting up better emergency planning... I won't begin to comment on the state of government, but clearly something is warranted, and anything would be an improvement on the current situation. Since the Antilles are undergoing constitutional change for Saba, Statia, & Bonaire to have closer ties to the Netherlands, I think this will help upgrade the standards of health care, among other things, and hopefully one of those additions is a safer mode of transport to the other islands for medical care.
I don't think that the average Saba or St Maartenner realized that the R-44 was not a heli for night operations... and furthermore that it may have flying illegally in certain situations. I have to wonder where the regulatory agency (CAA) was and why nothing was done if it was indeed an illegal operation, since I believe it was operating for quite some time?
I have another question - since the operator was an American, and I think the aircraft was as well, does the NTSB get involved?