Rotorspeed,
What you say has been argued many times before…unfortunately your argument is on shaky ground…and consequently there continue to be failures of the ‘system’ and accidents as a result of those failures.
I would like to address some of your points:
1. Third party evaluations – the use of consultants does not need to add cost to the industry. It can, on many occasions, be cheaper than deploying a permanent staff member with the high cost of their overheads, salary, medical, leave and retirement benefits. Additionally, a consultant has no 'sacred cows' to defend, staff members will usual say enough to give the consultant the picture and management expects a harsh review, which is after all what they are paying for. Management doesn’t call for a third party evaluation to get a pat on the back, they do it to get an honest opinion on how they are doing…as well as to show others (shareholder, insurers, regulators and the like) that they are serious about catching problems before there are accidents.
2. Most pilots, by nature, will challenge the rules…the problem is convincing, or teaching, pilots which rules should not be challenged. When the HR department recruits pilots because they have a license, a pulse & they need little investment in training it is difficult to recruit pilots who can make appropriate decisions. A pilot that goes out when he shouldn’t will probably (eventually) have an accident and cost the company money…a pilot that doesn’t go out when he should will cost the company money by losing a revenue flight. Management oversight by closely monitoring each flight is one of the ways to try and get the balance right.
3. Never in a hundred years will you get a bunch of pilots to agree on when it is right to say 'no', especially when they are the only one on duty in the middle of the night and a call for ‘help’ comes in to the office. As someone on another thread rightly pointed out, 10 pilots = 12 opinions.
4. I would suggest that the helicopter industry is too small an environment for a truly anonymous risk-reporting system, let alone in just the EMS element. Employers will find out who reported it and the reporter (the “whistleblower”) will get screwed…maybe not immediately, but eventually…it is a given!
IMHO the issue is not helped by the national regulations in many countries that permit VFR operations at night. If it was clear-cut that all operations at night have to be operated IFR by appropriately rated crews in appropriately equipped aircraft it would be a giant leap in the right direction. Night = IFR is crystal clear; it is not open to interpretation.
I argued this point at an HAI Safety Committee Meeting during Heli-Expo several years ago and it was absolutely clear to me from the response that the industry in North America had no appetite for such an idea. The industry accident figures have not improved in the interim nor do I see any shift in the attitude of the operators.
I agree with the argument that if we continue to operate in the same way then it is the height of stupidity to expect a different outcome, and a reduced accident rate.