Totally unrealistic helicopter FM...

[Toasted_Toad]

I'd like to see the insurance claim statement, "I swerved to miss a cat..."

[Dano]

Nasty, doesn't actually look like he hit anything to cause it either?

[JG52Uther]

What was reported at the time was that he hit a cable. I was surprised the way the heli just seemed to fall apart like that. Torque from the rotors perhaps?

[Sternjaeger II]

yeah, my guess is that he hit something that chopped off one of the rotor blade tips: the structural failure is due to the rotor imbalance, surely he was lucky to be at very low altitude..

Choppers are nasty things to be in when something goes wrong..

[Blakduk]

I saw this accident on the news- the footage they used was a slightly different angle. From that angle you could see him chop a steel cable and nearly get flung out of the cabin as it spun in. I've not been able to find this footage online unfortunately, but it was obviously a very risky maneuver. The investigation report will make interesting reading.

u can see how it happened here, at 0.08 seconds u see a cable blowing into the central rotor hub. That is how it occured.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/helicopter-...003652526.html