Originally Posted by
layman54
The header to this forum says "Accidents and Close Calls Discussion on accidents, close calls, and other unplanned aviation events, so we can learn from them, and be better pilots ourselves." I don't think a bias against assigning any responsibility for accidents to the pilots involved is helpful in using accidents to become better pilots. Sometimes many other parts of the system will fail but the pilot will still have a final opportunity to save the day. Or not.
According to post 1346 the accident helicopter was higher and to the west of the position of the typical helicopter flying that route. Was this a slight error that in this case was fatal?
Because I'm an attorney and not a pilot. Of course your description of the relationship between the forum purpose and unbiased analysis is correct. And by the same token, if I were working on this accident in my professional capacity, I hope to High Heaven that I would not be biased in any way, just the facts and the applicable law, and (apologies) the interests of justice.
But I crash this party every time I post, and so I'll let the professionals in the aviation community direct the painful vector of responsibility to aviators, where they must. As SLF/attorney I have determined it appropriate to respect the fact that the average professional pilot has already forgotten more about understanding accident causes and reasons than I will ever know. As I said, in a professional capacity, I would be working with such pro's and would "try to keep up."