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.
Oh dear we are back to that bitter note again.
If they had been military pilots I would be equally critical.
The fact that they are nice guys is irrelevant too as is much of the guff about hours and training - when you fly a perfectly serviceable helicopter into the water because you weren't paying attention to the IAS (and kill several pax) you can blame as many of the contributory factors as you like but the main cause is pilot (both PF and PM) error, plain and simple.