Originally Posted by
HeliComparator
Well I’m sure your passengers will be delighted to hear that it couldn’t possibly happen to you.
So, hypothetically, if a crew crashed the heli in the sim during a routine NPA without any systems emergencies, should the examiner say "oh well, the SOPs are backwards and pilots make mistakes, so no biggie, you pass"? This same situation, but in a simulator without consequences, or if one of the pilots on board had been competent in their role as a professional pilot and prevented the crash, the pilot(s) at fault for cocking up the flight would be put under the microscope without hesitation.
I don't think that because now that 4 or 5 people died as a result of this crash, we should pan out and find a bigger fish to paint the blame on, and ignore the fact that the crew did not do their job. If you believe that not
all the blame falls on the crew, that is perfectly reasonable and supported by the facts of the report (reminder to readers that reports do not apportion blame - our individual interpretations of those facts do), but to say that the crew were victims of some bigger systematic failure that placed them into an inevitable accident when they were in fact the last line of defence from stopping the helicopter from flying into the water, I find highly questionable. The helicopter functioned exactly as described on the tin. The crew however, did not.
As always, this is simply my opinion, through my interpretation of the facts.