Phone Wind
Don't forget, CFIT (W) occurred 30 years ago as well. There were 3 night CFIT accidents offshore between 1979 and 1982, resulting in the loss of 9 lives.
There wasn't another similar accident until Cormorant Alpha in 1992, then again, a welcome break from such happenings until 2006, since which time we've had another 3 !
What is causing these spate of accidents is difficult to say. It may go hand in hand with an increase in night flying, but I have no statistics for the amount of night flying conducted year on year. We flew a lot in the early 80's as the North Sea was built up, then flying sectors generally peaked in about 1990's. While generally quiet (compared to the 70's and 80's) we are stretching the aircraft out to longer days now. It is true to say that there haven't been many CFIT(W) accidents in daylight. None really, although one occurred at early dawn in poor viz.
New technology will get you in close but you've still got to manually take over to land and that is where pretty much all of these accidents have occurred. There is a lot of talk with this Etap accident regarding ARA's and the weather at the time - From what I read however, it seems the crew were pretty much visual with the landing area the whole time. Nothing went particularly wrong with the approach, but it was that last minute, from approach to landing, from an instrument biased approach to a visual manoeuver to land that went awry - And that is something that will always be there to bite us.