Guys, guys, guys...it's not about absolute safety. It's about the COST of safety. Anyone who does not know this hasn't been around very long.
Mars started this thread with a report of a 206 that autorotated to the water. Evidently nobody got killed or even hurt (maybe they didn't even get wet). This event is supposedly meant to incite us in high dudgeon?
SASless wonders why "pilots, and operators accept these kinds of risks?"
The Flying Squirrel splutters, "the attitude of the US firms incredible. The way cost is driven before safety issues is unbelievable. Pilots making regular transitions over large stretches of water, whether warm not, deserve to fly in twin aircraft."
We do?
slgrossman agrees. "Several of the major oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico have already begun the transition to using only twin-engine / IFR capable aircraft. Liability is probably the driving factor, and there's still a ways to go. Nonetheless, if you're flying for one of the "big boys" things have gotten a lot better over the past few years."
"Better" meaning, I guess, fewer single-engine helicopters.
I suppose there are those who feel that no fare-paying passenger should ever be flown over water in anything but a fully CAT-A capable, twin-engine, two-pilot, IFR helicopter. Yes, that should do it, eh what? That would be the ultimate in safety...the gold standard...the minimum duty of care that we owe to those passengers, hmm?
...And then I think about the "field ship" jobs I've had, bouncing from small platform to small platform...forty, fifty, or as many as 100 landings per day...as I ferried around the various things (men and equipment, tools and supplies, newspapers, lunch...) that keep the field running. Oh, how I would love to do that in a Super Puma...NOT! I didn't even like doing it in a BO105 on the few jobs that used to have them as field ships. The extra workload of operating the twin was simply not worth the effort in my humble opinion, given the fact that the old 105 had marginal single-engine capability at best (and negative single-engine capability at gross!). I kept thinking to myself, "This is safer than a 206? How come I'm working so much harder?"
So I ask: Should all field ships be outlawed? Should we tell the GOM oil companies, "Sorry guys, we don't care HOW your fields are constructed and laid-out, NO MORE SOUP FOR YOU! I mean, NO MORE SINGLE-ENGINE HELICOPTERS FOR YOU!" Mars says it best: "This appears to be a uniquely GOM issue with no parallel in the other oil provinces." Exactly, Mars, EXACTLY! The GOM is not like any other place on earth. To understand why things are the way they are, one must learn about the very nature of GOM operations. (And evidently, slgrossman hasn't flown a single-engine helicopter in a long, long while.)
Do not tell me that every helicopter in the GOM should be a twin. Twins are not necessarily "better." They are not necessarily "safer." Yes, with a single there is always the risk that a power failure will result in a ditching. Depending on the time of year (and sea-state and phase of the moon) that ditching may or may not be successful. The oil companies look at the hard numbers of what the unsuccessful ditchings might cost them and they decide whether to accept those risks or not. And you know what? Maybe these risks aren't as high as some people (Mars, SASless, slgrossman, The Flying Squirrel to name a few) perceive them to be.
Aha! That gets back to the question: Who defines risk? And how is risk defined? Many, many pilots believe the risks to be acceptable. In fact, they vote with their feet every morning, launching at sunrise in their 206's, 407's and 120's and heading offshore with a full load of people and things. Are they, and the people riding with them and the people who dispatched them and the people who own the companies that employ them all deluded?