P&A I agree with you regarding your sentiment around knee jerk reaction and statistics, although given recent events its not hard to see how we are where we are.
HC directed me to read the REDL accident report and so I did, it makes for some pretty poor reading and depending on which side of the fence you might sit you could throw any number of bodies under the bus. From the guy in the workshop to the manufacturer to the aviation authority and their certification process.
In the end I think its terribly condescending of those who harp on about how accidents will always happen and its part of managing your risk. of course they know that. What I suspect people don't like is to be told how they should trust a set of people that have been seen to let them down in the recent past.
I read today that Bristow have suspended some Super Puma family helicopter services in the UK and Nigeria. That's not knee jerk, that's probably just good old fashioned common sense at this stage isn't it?