Nigel says:
Well if he just hit hard why did he lift off again? Not knowing what damage had been caused ...only to put it down on a steep slope and stay upright by pure luck !! I would have thought that dumping collective and sticking it on the ground at first impact was the only sensible thing to do especially as this was the only flat bit.
Well, see Nigel, no offense but if you were a more experienced pilot you wouldn't have to ask this question. As the Astar pilot terminated his "approach," I'm certain that he was expecting the ship to settle into a ground-cushion of sorts and/or at least slow its rate of descent. I can assure you that he had the maximum amount of collective pulled and maybe a little bit more. Due to all this power applied, when the ship hit the ground, it bounced back into the air before the "pilot" could react. At that point, slamming the collective down wouldn't have been wise. The impact probably stunned him and maybe he froze on the controls for a sec.
We have to acknowledge that not every helicopter pilot is Chuck Yeager/Aaron. Some of us are exceedingly average stick-pushers even though in our mind we are God's gift to aviation. Secondly, pilots freeze. We don't like to admit it - and we pompously think it'll never happen to *us*, oh no! But it does, more often than you'd think. I've seen it often. I've had pilots sheepishly and shamefully admit to me privately that when the poop hit the fan all they did was hang on. For some, it worked out okay; not so for others. It always makes me wonder how I'll react when it gets really, really out of hand. So far I haven't had to find out.
But this Astar driver should have been able to see that he had no (or very little) airspeed and a screaming rate of descent for the altitude and temperature of the LZ - and he should've done something about it before getting torn to shreds in the various internet forums.
Let's cut him some slack.