Search and Rescue : not on this occasion.
Geez, Gullibell, were you there??? Bet you wasn't.
I was.
We were required by CA$A to do touchdown autos at night to an unlit pad, in order to be allowed to fly below LSALT at night in a single. Everybody was required to do the night checks every 3 months, and one pilot (who sadly is no longer with us) had been ducking and weaving that roster. I surprised him one night and away we went. I demo'd the first one so he could get his eye in.
On his first auto I put on the power and we went around from final, as he hadn't made the "gate" of 100', 60kt and stable approach. On the second one, all looked good, the flare, the pitch pull and nose over to level, waiting to cushion on, but the ground was 6" higher than we expected. Bounce. I took over, tried to ensure level and cushion on, but it bounced again. Never seen that before, we were out of collective and just along for the ride.
Thump onto the ground, sitting a little closer to the grass than normal. Obviously we had spread the skids, and probably rocked the transmission out of limits. Shut it down, advised the tower we would be there for a while to inspect it, stepped out and looked back.
"Oh, pharque!"
The other pilot steps out and looks back. "Ohhh, pharque!" The observer in the back clambers out. "Awwww, pharque!"
The Follow Me jeep comes trundling along a taxiway, and as he turns towards our spot, the headlights play over the machine. He screeches to a stop. "Ohh, Pharque!" and on it went.
I have still got the tail rotor blade, which had dug into the ground next to the stinger, on a wooden plaque on my wall. Yes it did go for a swim a few years later, with a different tail boom.