214ST,s Love em , just under developed, not many machines can take off gross weight on one engine on a 30oC day, I worked on all the Lloyd machines that ditched in Australia and until the last machine was replaced with a Super Puma in about 1996 then I had to move over to Eurotrash, the first was a drag brace failure, Bell upgraded to a Super Cobra brace but they weren't out to the field before this one failed, the second was a high side failure misidentified, the co-pilot was screaming "Rotor RPM Rotor RPM" and the Captain thought it was going down not up and the rest is history, that was when the client wanted to know the true OEI capability of the ST , to see if it would fly away from a rig on one if there was a failure, so with permission from Bell and GE we loaded to gross weight at the base OAT approx. 30oC , started both wound one back to idle , pulled to a hover and flew a circuit, landed , wound up the idled engine , wound back the second engine and did it again, no problem, this was 20 odd years ago, not many machine have this capability today .
Third ditching was attributed to T/R control issue, I don't think so as the pilots lost and regained T/R control at different speeds and power settings, I think it was a nodal failure on one side which would induce massive lateral bounce at various speeds and power settings, the tail fin and t/r of this aircraft was never recovered and divers never looked at the nodals (still under panels underwater) before it was allowed to sink, I believe it was a nodal failure as an ST had a heavy landing in South America in the late 90's and the description by the crew as they were going down was almost exactly the same as the machine that ditched in Australia but on inspection it was discovered it had a nodal failure on one side and nothing was wrong with the T/R control, depending on the speed , attitude and power settings the nodals can have up to about 3" of movement or under idle conditions none at all, when one side of your gear box is going up and down 3" and the other side is hardly moving you can imagine what happens.
Starting, you get 3 goes from the batteries then you are stuffed, one engine then the other then back to the first then the batteries are dead.
Hints, if available plug in Gnd power about an hr before you want to start and do all your checks, load nav , radio etc , this time allows the batteries to trickle to max before the start, Cycle your batteries if you are using the std nicads about every 4-6 weeks , ensures optimum battery life and performance , carry a spare starter, and swap one ever month , pull the covers off the removed starter and blow all the loose carbon powder from the brushes out, this is what takes power away from the starters as the excess carbon build up resistance in the starter , this ensures optimum life from the starters, make sure you always have 2 x good igniters in the engines and you will have little problems.