Walter Kennedy:
At the level of the LZ, the "IMC" would typically have only been 10 metres or so off the slope and intermittent at that .......I do not believe that a responsible crew would have gone in there without believing that they had accurate range - I believe that they thought they had but were misled wilfully or by error on the part of the personnel on the ground.
Walter, the responsibility for starting, let alone continuing, such an approach is the Captain's alone. I'm not privy to heli ops, let alone SF heli ops so stand by to be corrected on this, but the fixed wing variant is that you cannot make an approach to a runway that is not visual unless that approach is in accordance with IFR, ie to an approved and licensed approach and landing aid, and even then the IRVR must be at or above your minima. Hangars visual, tower visual, surrounding landscape visual, but if the runway isn't and IRVR's are below your minima, no approach (or go around if a change since you commenced approach). That is surely where the planned "murder" theory falls down; captain realises LZ not visual so does not even start an approach, endex! Wacky radios, handheld or otherwise, may be a useful aid to locating a visual LZ, but that is all they are, not the sole means of getting to one through mist or cloud no matter how shallow that might be. I'm sorry, I just don't go for your scenario.
bast0n,
(2) OK, how?