Originally Posted by
Capot
which explains the exclusion, but it seems to me that this Article is badly thought out. Apart from military, most of the other categories are operated commercially in some if not all EU States, and should, I would have thought, be grounded just like other operators, for exactly the same reason, danger to crew, passengers and the population beneath them.
No I'd say it is well thought out. Whether or not it is commercial is irelevant. The grounding is precautionary and nothing has changed since last month before the accident. If you were bobbing about in a cold ocean or stranded up a mountain having a heart attack, you would be very happy to be rescued by an EC225 regardless of a 1 in a million risk that the rotors might fall off.
The flight crews who were happy to fly the 225 for years before the accident will almost certainly still be, for the purposes of saving life. There is already an elevated risk from being a SAR pilot, compared to an "airline" helicopter pilot.