Wow, I knew I should have taken that management course when it was offered to me - I've been bamboozled by science !!!
All I know is, I need to convince the oil companies that flying by night is not the same as flying by day. That no matter how good my co-pilot is, that is not relevant, because even if its my landing, I as an experienced Captain with thousands of North Sea hours, can't guaranty the safety of passengers by night with anywhere near the confidence that I can by day.
We need to ask if flying by night will ever really be safe enough for public air transport ?? I think there is some figure for the 'acceptable accident rate' acknowledging the fact that there will always be accidents, but that with the correct proceedures in place, they should fall somewhere in the 1 accident in 10 million flying hours (or something like that), and I think we've seen over the last two years that while daylight flying accounts for the majority of hours flown, night flights account for the vast majority of accidents and fatalities.
Can this be improved with technology - Probably improved, yes.
Will training and CRM help ? - I doubt it, only because I think this is at a pretty high standard already.
Will policy help ? - Well I'd certainly welcome a reduction in deck shuttles, only because statistically, flying to 1 or maybe 2 decks then back home is clearly going to reduce the risk period offshore.
Is flying at night really that necessary ? - I would argue "Not really". As I said early on, even in the darkest weeks of winter, the whole of the North Sea would still get 8 - 9 usable daylight hours offshore. In terms of emergencies offshore, we now have Jigsaw and SAR units available with the equipment, crews and training to do just this.
We're talking of flying fare paying passengers here. Public Air Transport, and so I want to be able to say that my passengers have the same level of safety whenever they fly with me. I've taken my children on jump seat rides to show them what I do for a living, but I wouldn't dream of taking them at night - Not that I could take a jump-seat at night, the company doesn't allow it - Not safe enough !!!