Cyclic
Some good did come out of Cougar 491, one area was discussions wrt. the limitation on sea state, especially over here where we have a much higher number of annual sea state days > SS6 criteria in comparison to other offshore flight operational areas.
Although all our regular S92s have been upgraded to SS6, the decision on acceptable flying conditions is to my knowledge made by Cougar based on mutual agreement with the operators (see Q42 in the attached Q&A link below). There are different limits based on each operator/installation type. The common denominator is 6 metres, no one over here will officially fly regular operations in that and/or wind speeds > 55 knots. Visibility is our other big issue over here, we have a lot of fog days.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/nl-helico...y-20090512.pdf
Bond 88R could indeed have been a much different story via multiple scenarios. Having not flown with Bond in many years I do not know what type of HUEBA is used if any, last I recall is the Shark rebreather but they may have moved on to the Airpocket Plus, either one I know from personal experience are IMHO inferior to the HUEBA, e.g. my last OPITO refresher was done in Malaysia last year where they make you do 5 HUET exercises, the last one being deploy Airpocket Plus underwater upside down, knock out window/door and egress. Add in cold water shock etc. and the statistics tell us that maybe only 50% of occupants will manage to egress an inverted helo.
Safe flying
Max