What metric will I use ? Gut feeling - what else can I use ? I am merely a pilot - people with far bigger brains will put the case forward, I will then assess whether I have confidence in the product.
Whether it has been tested properly is not for me to assess. I have to have confidence in the aircraft I fly, and the training I'm given, otherwise I should change career.
I didn't state that the failures were beyond coincidence ... I was merely making the point that it was bad luck for Bond and CHC to have faulty MGBs - it could EASILY have been in a Bristow machine and I wanted AbzOilWorker to understand that it was NOTHING to do with maintenance procedures, and to think that AbzOilWorker is immune from an incident because of the operator that takes them to work would be an incorrect assumption.
I trust your comment regarding "flakey engineering" is directed towards the manufacturer, albeit an unfair comment. I look forward to the day when a product is designed that never has a fault - hindsight is a wonderful tool. Your comment implies that the design process contained an element of "it shouldn't fail, but who cares, we'll try it anyway and not test too thoroughly in case it doesn't pass". What is important is that lessons are learned from these events and the product improved. What more can we expect ?
The offshore workers have a habit of stirring themselves into a flap due to a lack of understanding / information / fear of the unknown. This is certainly not their fault, however, comments that suggest an operators maintenance procedures may be "sub standard" have a detrimental effect on their confidence and (wrongly) sews the seed that an operator may be less than professional.
I, like my peers in the offshore world, eagerly await a satisfactory resolution to the current issues, however a witch hunt helps no one. Lets stay professional and comment from a position of knowledge.
OMB