I've been watching this thread since it started, and at the risk again of getting something hard thrown my way, some thoughts, observations and questions.
First, an observation, which may be based on wrong information, the TV reports at the time of the accident showed an approach profile that was in no way a direct approach to the airfield, if there had been any hint of fuel shortage, which I would have expected the crew to have been aware of a long time before it became critical, then a direct routing would presumably have been sought and given. On that basis, I suspect the fuel shortage is a red herring.
So, there are significant discussions about ILS/DME, or VOR/DME approached, and even NDB/DME.
In the FW world, for which all of these very old technologies were originally produced, we regularly see aircraft the size of an A380 making approaches to land in CAT3C condition, where the only visual contact is after touchdown, at 140 Kts, and needing a long strip of unobstructed runway in front of the aircraft. It happens on a regular basis, all round the world, and the number of accidents that can be attributed to autoland is very low. It was developed originally for the Trident, and they've been out of service now for a long time.
I find it hard to understand why the RW arena does not at this stage have things like GPS/DME approaches, with Radalt coupled for the landing phase, that would be capable of approaching in zero visibility, and then making an appropriate descent and flare to landing. GPS accuracy is way more precise than a localiser, or glideslope, so why has it not become a fundamental part of NS operations, with suitable equipment fitted on the rigs to provide the wide area augmentation.
If that is not accurate enough, what happened to MLS, which was supposed to be capable of more accurate resolution than ILS.
A long time ago, I got the impression that ILS was going to be phased out to free up the frequency spectrum for other broadcasting use, and replaced by a combination of MLS and GPS/DME approaches, but things seem to have gone very quiet in that area for some reason.
Last weekend, I was at a model show in Kent, and one of the things shown was a model quadcopter no more than 500mm rotorspan, it took off from a fixed point, marked by a balloon on a stick, was then flown around the area, under radio control, and then flown away from the start point, and to conclude the demonstration, the transmitter was switched off. The quad then climbed to 20 Mtrs, positioned back towards the departure point, then descended from the overhead, and landed less than 1 metre from the departure point, using electronics that are the size of a matchbox.
This was in gusty winds, so the "black box" had to work to keep things accurate, which it did.
I was already aware of this technology, and I find it slightly strange that the manufacturers and operators of commercial helicopters have not pushed very hard to get this level of technology on board, even if only in research at this stage,
So, I guess the questions I am posing are pretty simple in some respects.
Why is the NS forced to still use technology that was never designed or intended for RW operation?
Why have the capabilities that are in daily use on FW operations not finding their way down into helicopter operations. If an A380 is deemed safe to regularly land in zero visibility conditions at 140Kts, and it does not have the ability to hover, why can't a helicopter be set up to land safely in zero zero conditions using similar technologies, or better, given that MLS and GPS, along with Radalt should be capable of determining exactly where the helicopter is, laterally and vertically, and determining automatically how to get to the required point.
There will be issues with keeping the crew in the loop. and it certainly appears that there are problems already in this area, the comment about geek systems is well understood, I've worked with some of them, and if they don't have real experience at the sharp end, some of the more esoteric things that get done only serve to confuse things, so maybe some of the retired or senior NS pilots should be working with the manufacturers to develop systems that meet the needs of the task.
I don't think I'm taking an over simplistic view of things, and clearly some change would be a benefit to safety and reliability, which all involved should be happy to see.