Max,
Everyone on this board appreciates your comments about the tragic accident. Another forum would probably be a better place for this discusion but let me offer a partial defence of Steve76. Apparently in Canada and other places, all offshore workers have to go through a complete physical and demonstate a level of fitness, but here in the Gulf of Mexico, that kind of screening is problamatic at best. We often have a problem with passengers, who to say the least, are huge. This is especially true of service hands. I'm sure any of us who have been doing this for some time have had to refuse to carry passengers because they couldn't get the life jackets on or couldn't get the seat belt around them. That's the easy part. Its the passengers that can - barely - that I worry about were an emergency ditching to happen. Frankly there should be no need for a special step for passengers who weigh over 400 pounds for the 92.
I will say that histroy has shown, in a controlled ditching, passengers can and do escape often with no training at all. The Northwest Airline ditching in the Hudson River, the Bristow Super Puma ditching several years ago in the North Sea and the Air Log 76 ditching after the Allison engine blew up and took out the DC junction box meaning no floats and the aircraft immediately began to roll over are some examples.
Perhaps as part of offshore training, having everyone demonstrate they can fit through a window frame should be required.