It's very sad to repeatedly read about these tragic accidents which often appear to follow a common theme.
Just to set the record straight for some:
In UK, single engined helicopters are no longer allowed to operate in IMC, period.
In UK, there is no such thing as "Night VFR" for civilian operations. Flight under VFR is not allowed by night / night flying must be carried out under IFR. However, IFR are deemed to be met below 3,000 feet if sufficient external visual cues on the surface are available for the attitude of the aircraft to be assessed and maintained.
The difficulty comes from recognising when sufficient external cues no longer exist. Pilots must be totally prepared (in all respects) for a safe and timely transition to instruments.
VFR is safe enough, IFR is safe enough (neither without some level of risk), but transitioning from one to the other needs some serious thinking about to be safe.
Public Transport (PT) by night in UK is no longer allowed in single engined (and therefore non-fully IFR equipped) helicopters. We suffered some very high profile public transport accidents some years ago and singles were subsequently outlawed.
This tragic accident was obviously not a police operation but seeing as this type of operation has been mentioned, it should be remembered that in UK, police operations are deemed to be Public Transport and must operate under the terms of a Police Air Operations Certificate. The Chief Constable of the unit is deemed to be the PAOC holder. UK Police helicopters must be twin engined, (day or night) and for night ops or IFR must have a stabilisation system fitted. They are actually most often operated under "Visual Contact Flight" (VCF) rules by day or night, which give defined, but slightly less strict, weather criteria than for other other public transport operations, including minimum separation from cloud.
UK police pilots are required to carry out mandatory regular instrument training with a safety pilot on board (whether holding a full IR or not), so that in the event of inadvertant entry to IMC they should be fully competent to recover to a diversion airfield for an instrument approach or at the very least for a letdown to VCF over a safe area.
Having operated under military, police and purely civilian / PT rules, single pilot, in both single engined, twin engined, non stabilised and unstabilised helicopters I would personally always take the "full IFR" option (where possible) for a job like the one in question. Irrespective of local rules or which type of AOC I was required to operate under.
This accident, for the purpose of saving one life, resulted in the tragic loss of three lives. Many others in the not-too-distant past have done the same.
In UK the flight in question just would not have been allowed. Period.
Seems to me that the only reason that the USA rules still allow this type of public transport job is resistance from the industry, to keep down the cost and keep up profit margins. If we can make the changes in little old and broke UK, why can't the USA?
