For the sake of clarity and accuracy, could people stop including the Brunei incidents in the discussion about oil loss? Neither incident was a result of a leak, and indeed my incident was a result of too much oil! Admitedly, the subsequent condition of the input module resulted in some leakage, but not to any significant degree
212man, thanks for clarifying, first time I've heard it mentioned that the Brunei incident was over-filling of MGB lube oil. Obviously not a design/certification issue. Ever tried running your car with too much oil, excessive pressure build-up = gasket blow or pressure sensor blowout.
Whilst I'm in clarification mode, the main S-92a thread has mentioned that the latest S-92a incident over in Norway is believed to be a hydraulic fluid leak. This brought back to memory my own personal recollection of a similar incident. I had the unfortunate pleasure of experiencing a similar hydraulic leak issue back in Nov 15, 2006. Luckily we had just landed on the Henry Goodrich and I spied the drip-drip as we got off for refuelling. We then were told that it was a minor leak and not to worry, took off and promptly landed again. The helo had to be fixed by Cougar in situ which meant a wee boat trip and crane transfer for the techs and us PAX who were going to Terra Nova. No mention in CADORS on that one...Kudos to the Cougar pilots for immediately grounding that helo, probably saved us getting our feet wet or even worse.
The point I'm trying to make is that this didn't stop me from flying in the 92 after the event, we were well de-briefed on the problem and again trusted the whole team to keep us flying safely. This will hopefully be the case in the future.
The only positive thing that can come out of 491 is that we're hopefully going to have safer operations and a greater understanding of the inherent risks in helo flying. The big question now is will the S-92a type 'A' certification be pulled in light of the now well-known facts?