The first one I will mention is the New York Ditching of a corporate S76 in which the pilot was last known to be 'critical' having suffered 'salt water drowning'.
Second helicopter crashes in New York - World - smh.com.au
The second was another S76 flow by a colleague whilst on SAR duty in the Baltic. I had a first hand account of how he flew into the water positioning at night for a medevac on a remote island. He told me in graphic detail how, with the last breath on his STAS he crawled out of the cockpit and inhaled water, became unconscious and floated to the surface where he was resuscitated by his colleagues who had made it out OK.
I ask myself 'will every step forward that designers make be faced with this approach by the Luddites?'
If you fly a helicopter then you have to accept that so long as is made by humans and maintained by them then mistakes are always possible and every year bad things happen. Would Variable Load and Outwest kindly share with us the types they fly and then I'll give them a list of things that have historically been the cause of tragedies. As far as i know no helicopter is immune from the kind of failures that may be fatal.
Ask the guys who fly around with Ballistic Parachutes fixed to their aircraft if they are happy or unhappy that this feature is aboard.
I'm not going to persuade the unpersuadable and I feel no obligation to save you from your own views but if you chose to do something other than the RFM procedures on a regular basis then get it in writing first. In my experience the guys higher up the tree, the guys in the regulators and the establishment have a well trodden pathway when it comes to getting out from under and leaving you holding the baby.
G.
