bpaggi
daily operation carried out in AEO conditions as I stressed in my post
To me your post seemed primarily about CAT A which is surely mostly about engine failure accountability? But I totally agree that good AEO performance is important for safe day-to-day operations. I have never flown the 139 and I don't know what its AEO performance is like. I do seem to recall that AEO max gross weight has recently been increased and this is surely only to improve the range-payload, not to improve safety, so AW is not totally saintly in this regard!
A safe helicopter has the attributes you mentioned, but also others such as good visibility from the cockpit, carefree handling including intuitive automation, and a good HMI. Those are the bits that help reduce operational accidents, but of course there is also the design of the mechanical bits - eg failure modes all identified and allowed for, good VHM system etc. and just plain high reliability of critical bits!
I don't know where the 139 stands on these points, but I do notice that it hasn't had much market share in terms of offshore helicopter sales. Why do you think that is?
HC