In late August, another Eurocopter Super Puma crashed into the North Sea near the United Kingdom. Four of those aboard died. Over the last several years, a handful of ditchings/crashes of this model have been tied to flaws in the design of its main rotor gearbox lubrication system and a batch of replacement main rotor shafts.

The helicopter has been periodically grounded for safety reviews and the development of modified systems, but continues to be a backbone of the North Sea's offshore oil industry and the search-and-rescue teams who serve it. Needless to say, this makes some of the oil workers who fly in it a bit nervous.

Some of them are posting their concerns on a new Facebook page entitled "Destroy the Super Pumas," where the writing ranges from the ill-informed and obscene to genuine, well-reasoned concerns. Three days after the latest crash, the page already had 32,000 "likes" and was gaining thousands more every day. A link to an online petition to remove the Super Puma from service already had gained thousands of signatures.

All this raises the question: When several helicopters of the same make/model crash, is it always right to blame the machine? I think not and here's why.

By their nature, helicopters are complex machines. Sometimes mechanical problems with them reveal themselves years — if not decades — after a particular model first enters service, after ships have been subject to thousands of hours of operational stress. Just about every manufacturer has encountered this kind of problem with everything from main rotor blades to tail booms.

For the most part the manufacturers do a good job of staying on top of these problems before they result in the crash of a helicopter and/or loss of life. They issue service bulletins for new parts and/or procedures to operators that later become the basis for airworthiness directives and other alerts from the international regulatory authorities such as the FAA and EASA.

It is up to the operators to comply with these bulletins and alerts and pay extra attention to the parts of the helicopter they cover with additional maintenance checks. Pilots also need to be sanguine about these warnings, giving problem areas extra attention on their preflight inspections.

When these things are done, safety is generally not compromised, and passengers and crew can fly with confidence. However, when manufacturers rush to fashion a solution without first understanding the full scope of the problem, safety can suffer. I'm not saying this is what happened with the Super Puma; that's for regulators to determine after a thorough investigation.

The media has a tendency to sensationalize these matters, often needlessly raising the public's anxiety levels. If you have specific questions or concerns about the make and model of helicopter you fly, seek out the opinions of your maintenance chief and/or chief pilot. Ask them about the company's safety system.

Earlier this year, I visited a Las Vegas-based helicopter operator who went to great lengths to explain his company's safety system, particularly as it pertained to vigilance of critical fasteners and attach points on its helicopters.

Pilots are schooled in the "20 bolts that can save your life" and how to examine them before each flight. When a mechanic torques key bolts, he must sign off on it, his supervisor then signs off on it, then an independent "torque inspector" signs off on it.

Yes, it seemed a bit of overkill, but this operator has never had a serious crash. What they do have is an award-winning safety culture. The helicopters they fly are not perfect and have had their share of airworthiness directives. But this company focuses on safety processes.

They don't demonize the machine.