Originally Posted by
etudiant
It may be prejudice, but I'm in the mechanical failure camp. The tail being 500 ft from the main fuselage, after a low altitude crash into shallow water, seems difficult to explain otherwise.
Also in the back of my mind is a memory of an earlier Leonardo helo killing the management team of a major NJ casino by an unexpected rotor
failure. It suggests they make Ferrari aircraft, super performing, but with frailties.
Why don't we all wait and see where the NTSB pre-lim report says the tailboom was found. It might have been 20 feet from the fuselage or 2000 feet...we don't factually know at this point.
Also, CFIT doesn't preclude spatial
disorientation...in many cases it's the result of it.
"Controlled flight" doesn't necessarily mean desired flight.