Condolences to the family and friends.
Remember, at the end of the day, anybody involved with aviation in this country (SA) is family (like to know it or not). We might like to believe we (the SA aviation industry) are Gods gift to wings and blades but the industry in this country is actually very, very small. Whether it's four jets, twin turbines, a piston or a Rotax or nothing (for the glider/paraglider etc guys).
From what I've read on this thread and heard from a Cape Townian yesterday, I can only comment as follows, keeping in mind that we are ALL commenting with very little FACTS.
If this was a student pilot, management of the school should not have allowed flying in the prevailing weather conditions (as qouted on here) - (the area - offshore- where the student flew is thus not relevant).
I agree with GFJ that ANY student cross country flight should file a flight plan, day night whatever. Fact is scarce - was this a cross country?
The NAVAL helicopter COULD have been an Oryx 3 km (?) away. To the unindated (non-flying types), the distance (size of an Oryx vs a R22) coupled to parralax error (speed) it could have seemed that the two helo's were in formation.
Remember, the worst eye witness in any flying accident is a knowledgeable one (he/she who knows about flying - they draw their own "knowledgeable" conclusions). The normal person on the street usually carries it across better - as it happens (except for the smoke and the explosion when it happens on land as that is SOP for any flying accident for the unindated). Therefor, from a very UNINFORMED PPruner, judging from the eyewitness reports as conveyed to us in the press (suspect immediately), things seemed to have happenned very quickly when the aircraft went down. It could have been one of many things...think about it...gearbox...tail rotor failure...medical condition...gusts/wind...the list is endless. We can all speculate...lets wait and see.
I can just add that I hope the CAA does the investigation properly as any accident which ends up in the sea (no matter how deep) where there's no FDR/CVR and no crew members to give an account of events is very difficult. Have t-shirt and know of a guy that did an excellent job on a similar (it was a jet though) accident many moons ago.