My condoleances to all affected by the loss of their loved ones and friends.
We as an industry could well do without another tragedy.
But I do agree that there seems to be an increase of knee-jerk reactions to any incident and accident. Grounding all Super Pumas that among them have less in common than many would imagine, cannot be a decision based on rational thought. At least not technically rational.
It seems to be rational if one takes into account the irrational and highly emotional response to another accident, as a means of limiting the publicity damage to the company.
As a driver I would not get airborne in a helicopter that I did not trust 100%. My life, my reputation and my estate are on the line with every flight. As long as pilots are confident to fly, the passengers should be as well. After all, as long as the "bears" are happy to stay on a rig, I'm happy to land there 'cause it must be safe to do so.
Proper investigation takes time. Until then, every ground crew will check everything even more thoroughly than before, every flight crew will be even more critical than before, and nobody wants to be seen ar feel to be taken any chances. Having said that, there is no 100% risk free life.
I agree with the sentiment that there has been too much paper safety and not enough emphasis on the professionals doing a professional job using their professional judgement. This has led to the current climate in which people with only a limited knowledge of the real world scream for paper measures because they have been conditioned ito believing that they constitute real safety. WRONG.
What ensures your safety are the professionals that do a very good job, day in day out. More than any paper pusher behind an expensive desk can and will ever acchieve by producing more restrictions and procedures.
Occasionally professionals get it wrong, that is true. The AAIB will have to find out where this went wrong and come up with realistic recommendations to prevent it from reoccurring. Until then a grounding of a type will only introduce more risks to other types.
If I had to fly a SP load in my medium type I would need 3 flights instead of 1 on SP, which means 3 times the flight risks but spread over 8 PoB at a time instead of 20.
But how to calculate the knock on effect of splitting the load, flying more hours, having crews arriving and departing in a staggered time scale, how does THAT affect your total safety?
Having said that, having operated at Sumburgh I did wonder why there was only 1 full ILS available on what is clearly an important airport in the region. I would not wait for the investigation results to increase the number of precision approaches there, given the local weather. Although it may have nothing to do with this accident, it would give a greater safety margin overall.