RileyDove - you make some fair points I wouldn't argue with.
Boeings attitude to the problem and the fact that the Airworthiness Directive took so long to come are quite interesting for those who blindly believe civil aviation is magically safe.
The accident stats are interesting - whilst you can't generalise due to CFIT/polit error reasons etc, some themes emerge:
Harriers - crash alot more than most fast jets - jaguar being an exception, and the tonka figures are quite high
Helicopters - are known to be complicated and fundamentally quite dangerous things and these figures backthat up. The Squirrel has a very good record though and Sea Kings are good too.
Nimrod - if you flew one every day for an hour it would be 342 years before you had any sort of incident.