Reading the NZ article, I was struck by what I thought was a rather larger number of R44 accidents worldwide than I would have thought possible: 95 worldwide with 58 fatalities since Jan '15.
Looking back into the FAA database for the period of Jan '15 to Apr '17 (when the article was published), I found 45 of those listed in the US. That probably makes sense, given that the bulk of Robinson operations can be logically assumed to be in the US. However I also found only 3 fatals in the US (5 total souls) out of those 45 US accidents. The article did not specify if that was 58 total fatal accidents worldwide, or 58 fatalities. Either way, the result is that the fatality rate, under either statistic, is much, much higher outside of the US. Indeed, with over 99% of all Robinson R44 fatalities being outside the US in that time period, combined with what almost certainly has to be a far lower operational tempo than in the US, it is no wonder that those outside of the US have a much lower opinion of Robinson helicopters.
This begs the question of what the heck is going on outside of the US with respect to Robinson maintenance, training and flight operations to cause this dramatic disparity in US vs. non-US Robinson accident and fatality rates. And one wonders does this disparity extend to other types as well?
While I was looking at the FAA database, I also took another look at the numbers for the period Jan '15 to Apr '17, to match up with the article time period:
Robinsons of all types: 79 total accidents of which 6 were fatals
Bells of all types: 80 total accidents of which 11 were fatals
My (subjective) breakdown of Robinson fatals is: 2 pilot errors, 1 maint. error, 1 IIMC, 2 undetermined ("fell out of the sky")
My (subjective) breakdown of the Bell fatals is: 1 pilot error, 1 maint. error, 3 IIMC, 1 CFIT, 2 mechanical failures, 3 undetermined ("fell out of the sky")
Strikingly similar. I wish I had data that gave the total flight hours for Robinsons and Bells over that same time period. It obviously makes a difference depending on whether or not the total hours flown by each type were comparable or not.