Some have said, on here, that the Puma family has run up 9 million hours over all marks.
In that time it has had 3 visualy similar (tho not causal) MRH failures where we can ALL graphically imagine the results.
My questions are;
1 At what point does the statistical likelyhood of this event occuring 3 times stop being chance and become an inherant weakness ?- for whatever reason.
2 Does any other type (same operating area/same hours) have similar record of such a failure?
We should remember that as far as the "public" is concerned an aircraft loss is an aircraft loss - "most" people will neither know nor care whether it was caused by human error or mechanical failure. They will simply have the preception that a newer (or different) aircraft is safer simply because they,ve crashed less !
I think it unfair that on aircraft types that this is the case - but, how long did the chinook family survive public opinion?
On a personal note - ever since I saw the picture of the MRH buried in the ground with an intact strut minus its lower attachment pin, I,ve had a bad feeling.
AAIB and AH will have the final say.