I will be cold and heartless here....trying to live up to my newfound reputation.
These three accidents are nothing new to the offshore helicopter industry.
They have happened before and they will happen again.
Today it is Cougar and Bond and next time it will be other operators.
None of the operators want these things to happen....no one does.
We have to accept the fact that helicopters are very complex machines that have the potential of incurring faults that will cause horrible results.
We fly in some very inhospitable areas where survival is not a sure thing if you survive contact with the surface....in fact that is usually when the most risk occurs.
For an oil company to terminate a contract as a result of a crash or even crashes.....barring proven negligence or a defective aircraft design they are not making a reasonable or logical decision.
Other operators than Bond and Cougar have had bad runs of luck or whatever you want to call it and did not lose their contracts thus why should these two operators. In fact, these two operators are probably better choices for two reasons. They are looking at their operations and trying to find every way to improve them they can.....and it is some else's turn at bat.
The key is to figure out how to improve the safety of operations as we find out the causes of these tragedies.