What I do have a problem with is Mr Hall trying to pass it off as mitigated risk! I have never heard so much bullsht in my life.
J3 - with respect I suggest you again look at the concepts of Risk and Risk Mitigation. There is a wealth of information around about this nowdays.
As I said to you earlier in this thread, the risks are mitigated to a point that MH (and others)
accept them. The risks that are mitigated include - but are not limited to - training, experience, selection criteria, water rescue craft, divers, wind limits, speed limits etc etc etc.
In no way is there a suggestion that the risks are eliminated or reduced to a level that equates to charter flying. Hell, even in commercial operations for paying passengers CASA has determined different levels of risk that are acceptable. That's why you can't fly single piston engine IFR / night with pax, you need life rafts beyond XXnm, pilot experience requirements etc etc etc.
Risk in aviation is NEVER brought down to a
standard minimum. It is brought back to what is acceptable - and in commercial ops that is what level of risk CASA's policy deem appropriate for the (assumed ignorant) fare paying pax.
What is acceptable here then? Well in this case RBAR and the pilots have determined it to be the standards that we see today.
They have mitigated the risks to a level that they accept.
It is this acceptance of risk that you seem to have an issue with, and again I suggest you look further into it. In my past I have done some things on mountains, on cliffs and in caves that I would not consider doing now as I sit beside my toddler and about to pick the elder one up from kindy. But at 26 I didn't think twice about climbing a mountain that I had watched three Koreans get choppered off in body bags two days earlier.
I would still mitigate the risks in the same way (avalanche beacon, ropes, training, helmet, ice tools etc etc). My old climbing partner is now a mountain guide. He is still willing to accept the residual risks. With my 2 little boys, I'm not.