Thanks for replying airwave. I would like to continue this debate a little more. I will add my own highlights to your post:
Airwave45
P and A,
Very well put together post.
There is a view from the front of the bus that every effort will be made to understand root cause for each incident, I believe you as an industry do that exceptionally well.
It's a very reactive way to address safety issues though.
I could take some exception to this statement. Do you really think that the only safety efforts made in the helicopter aviation community are in response to crashes?
I know that as a check and training pilot over more than a decade I have seen different. Take a CFIT accident for instance. After the accident there is a flurry of blame, dissection of the crew, operator, CAA, etc. Then highly publicized changes are made. You see the reactiveness of the system most of us dislike (and I personally despise) because that is all anyone on the outside sees.
On a daily basis we are on the line watching how procedures are being flown, suggesting changes, assessing the effectiveness of training, makes changes to curriculums, monitoring flight checks for trends, etc. No one outside our sphere sees this proactive work because there was no accident to put it on FB.
That doesn't mean the work wasn't happening.
Not so long ago I was receiving an update during a monthly safety meeting (hate the name) and at that time CHC's accident rate was equivalent to a first tier airline. Despite a much harsher and volatile operating environment. I don't recall the particular metric being used but the point is that those of us at the coal face have faith in the system because the
real system is us, not the
PR machines of the manufacturer, authority, and employer.
I have seen the same daily input into maintenance procedures, reporting of trends, and assessment of data on the engineering side.
There are weak operators out there yes, and weak individuals, but not a majority.
The Norwegian approach seems to be significantly more proactive.
As for comparing stats, you can get them to say anything as you pointed out, the 777 may have crashed every other month over the last two but despite flying into a wall at close to your Vne, it still only killed one person.
(terrible tragedy with the emergency services, for all concerned)
It's a tank.
You agree that stats are easily manipulated, then you say...
Data mining the stats GoM vs NS is possible as Take off and landing data is there. But it's pretty obvious that N Sea ops are only, at best, almost as good as GoM. (but you would be stretching things to say as good as)
Given the differences in machinery, that should not be so.
Look at the difference between the East and West of the N Sea and a blind man in a dark room could see that something is not right.
I'm with you in that I don't think any specific aircraft is responsible for this.
Given the percieved difficulty by the pilots / mechs on here to pinpoint why we are not as good as the Norwegians, I'll happily see the SP sacrificed to the press as that will shake the business up sufficiently to make us find out what is going on.
It's not big and it's not clever, but it will make change happen.
It's not big, it's not clever, and it could kill a type (225**) that has brought many advances to the business of moving people offshore. The net positive effect is zero. Blunt instruments don't make for effective surgical tools, they just force a patient into surgery.
This is akin to having a man complain that he is in pain but it's not serious enough to get looked at. You whip out a sledge hammer and break his leg and say "now he'll see you". He asks you why you did that: now his leg is broken and his shoulder still hurts.
**I don't fly the 225, nor do I particularly want to. A VFR 212 would be a dream.