The discussion here is extremely interesting and thought provoking, and I would like to commend all the contributor's and this forum - it is excellent.
I am ex SLF, but still talk to colleagues who are SLF.
If a helicopter crashes, they are normally grounded. If mechanical fault is found, they remain grounded until either all have been fully inspected, or have had component replacement - and then the regulator (and operators) is satisfied the event cannot reoccur and the aircraft start flying again.
In this event, we still don't know the cause, but you guys seem pretty sure it is some form of procedural or human error, possibly coupled with something else that may have distracted the crew until it was too late to take corrective action.
Why then, are the aircraft (L2) then returned to the air without any assurance that the same event cannot be repeated? This worries me a little, although I am sure (well hopeful) that all crews now are very aware of the possible causes of this accident and this makes another occurrence less likely.
You guys are kings of the check list - I assume there is no check list you use when starting approach?, including ensuring both crew are aware of AP modes, who is controlling each axis and who is monitoring what?
I also
found section 8.6.1 of this EASA document very interesting regarding automation and training.
The discussion on 3rd party training is very interesting - oil companies are run by bean counters too, but the MD's will release funds if required for safety improvements - as we all know a major accident (like this one) will cost much more than any savings made anyway - a lesson we seem to keep forgetting?
From limited discussion with my offshore colleagues, the EC225 briefings appear to be going well with very good input from the pilots doing briefings, although the major concern of the workers still seems to be how to get out if they end up inverted in the water.
In this incident, there was no warning and no time to prepare or deploy rebreather - I wonder if then the air bottles in the rebreathers activated on contact with water and there would have been air bubbles everywhere as the air escaped the rebreather? Personally my focus would have been on escaping and i would not have tried to deploy the rebreather, and I hope the full AAIB report focuses on what happened in the rear cabin as well as what caused the accident.
I still think the main focus should be on keeping the aircraft from entering the water - I think those of us who have flown in the NS for a long time know if we had to ditch on a winters day with quick overturning of the chopper the outcome may not be very good.