Chili, I wasn't criticising anyone. I was just making the point that the lessons on the ATC side (though I hesitate to call it that) in this case are seemingly clear; more familiarisation on the types of a/c and types of flying that those aircraft conduct.
The lessons of the training of helicopter pilots should
also be examined. Lets not assign blame, we can
all learn from incidents (or near incidents) like this.
I have also worked at an airfield where extensive flying training took place, albeit not for a prolonged period.
Student pilots, at ATC controlled airfields, are told to do what ATC tells them.
That's certainly not what I was told to do when I was learning at a controlled airfield. Before I went solo (fixed wing), and during the subsequent solo consolidation hours I was under no illusion that if anything was out of the ordinary at all or I didn't feel 100% happy, to let ATC know, or ask for plain language clarification. Indeed, the day I went solo, Concorde was operating pleasure flights to the Bay from the same aerodrome. I wouldn't have thought twice about saying 'no' to ATC if they'd asked me to do something I was unsure about, even if it meant delaying Concorde.
This is perhaps one of the lessons that I was referring to. If student pilots are indeed being taught to blindly follow ATC instructions without first ensuring they understand the implications to their own aircraft, then I would suggest that needs investigating.
If student [helicopter] pilots are operating to the limits of mental capacity to the extent that they get themselves into dangerous situations, then perhaps the training syllabus should be looked at? Minimum hours? synthetic training aids?