One pilot having an off day is completely understandable but that is why you have two crew for these operations - PF and PM - neither of whom did their jobs properly.
Helicomparator - you cant defend them by saying they were concentrating on the approach - every pilot does that or they shouldn't be in the seat.
Of course I have made mistakes - mine just didn't cost the lives of 4 people directly - it is a fatuous argument.
If you can't acknowledge the errors - from the choice of approach profile to the mindset they were going to get in to the complete lack of CRM and monitoring of the aircraft - then perhaps you were part of the problem in the N Sea..
According to your logic, I could have a blade strike on a mountain SAROP, roll down the hill and kill several occupants and then claim I wasn't negligent but I was concentrating on the wrong thing!!!
A straightforward instrument approach turned into a horrendous - yet completely preventable - accident costing lives with 2 pilots holding professional commercial licences at the controls. How is that not negligent?
Were the pilots carrying out the approach in accordance with normal practice for their company? Yes. A bad practice IMO, but normal for their company’s culture. Whose fault was that?
The copilot was 6 months in from getting his first job. In that time he had been flipped between the L2 and the 225 several times. Yes the same type, but completely different helicopters to operate. During typical type rating courses and differences courses, nearly all the focus is on the role of pilot flying. Pilot monitoring barely gets a look-in except for the offshore radar approach. And yet here he was acting as PM for an onshore approach in very marginal weather. It is obvious that he didn’t really understand the most important role of PM. Was he stupid? No I don’t thing so. Was he given clear parameters to monitor for? No. So how is he expected to monitor?
Was he a product of the training system that prioritises PF role and fatuous things like engine failures that virtually never happen, as opposed for training for the “day job” of what happens 99.99% of the time. Yes i would say so. Was he, 6 months into a rather disorganised career, to blame for not understanding the primary role of PM during an onshore instrument approach? No I don’t think so, I would say he was a victim as much as any of the passengers, of a training system little changed from the dark ages.
These are the sorts of questions one has to consider if any attempt to improve things is the aim. To just blame the pilots is ignorant and futile, although I will agree it is in the culture of unthinking people trained in the military who think they are so superior.