Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
...It seems to me that the combination of a sudden onset downwind exposure followed by a spiralling, out of control descent is perhaps more likely to be relevant than the highly unlikely coincidence of a t/r failure just at that critical point. This followed by a rapid dump of the collective in an attempt to recover Nr would fit with an eyewitness reporting a gear-crunching noise (I paraphrase) - perhaps blade stall - followed by relative silence as pitch is reduced.
Rapid dump of collective is entirely consistent pilot response to sudden TR drive failure, primarily to reduce rate of rotation and not so much to preserve NR (when the TR drive lets go shifts all the power availability to the MR and none to the TR).
Gear crunching noise has nothing to do with blade stall and (more likely) everything to do with a broken TR drive shaft flailing around or a TRGB or IGB grinding itself to pieces.
Relative silence not because pitch is reduced, more likely because of pilot actioned engine shut down following TR drive failure.
I do agree however that the wind direction may be a critical factor in what happened here, and struggle with the thought that sudden TR drive failure happened at the worst possible moment.