The sense of deceleration you get in a Puma when you collect a set of LT cables is quite marked.
Flying up a small valley in County Armagh. The end is covered with burnt gorse and a line of trees either side mask the poles. The wires were invisible until they were about thirty yards ahead.
The windscreens collected them first. They then slid up and snagged themselves in the engine intakes. That was were the deceleration was. When the insulation was rubbed off there was a bright flash as the cables shorted and separated. There was little else to do except flare off the remaining speed and land it, albeit downwind.
My crewman was unruffled telling the troops that we had had a wirestrike and were landing immediately. On arrival they streamed out and took defensive positions IAW SOPs.
The damage was two windscreens badly cracked. The wires had demolished half the cockpit roof which had then been eaten by the engines. The intakes had severe horizontal creasing and one blade had been damaged by a loose end of one of the wires.
Over the next couple of hours a defensive circle was set up. A Puma came with ground crew and a spare blade. When fitted we ground ran it to see how much the roof had effected the engines. When this showed negative we loaded up everybody and I flew it back to Aldergrove.
A few years later there was an almost identical wirestrike in the then Rhodesia and everybody on board was killed.