aa777888 - when you say 'well within' you should qualify that with 'inside the limits of the performance graphs' since you can't tell how much spare performance there might or might not be from the graph, only that you reach the max gross weight line before you hit temperature or DA limits.
How about this: the aircraft was capable of an OGE hover per the POH at approx. 4800 ft pressure altitude under the stated conditions, but it was landing at an altitude of 350 MSL. In my book that is "well within", others may have a different opinion.
Just having OGE performance isn't enough for proper confined area operations like this with tall trees - you need to have a thrust margin of at least 5% and ideally 10% to allow for the manoeuvring and any turbulence/wind shear/recirculation.
Even stipulating that, it would not have been an issue in this case, both on paper and as someone who regularly flies an R44 at max. gross.
My point about the fuel - and I took the 110litre fuel capacity from the Robinson site without realising there was an aux tank giving 180 - was that to get to where they planned to refuel, they would have used quite a lot and in all likelihood got airborne from Reeds Pond in excess of gross weight. It adds to the expired medical in terms of attitude to aviation.
Looking at the distances involved, which even in a straight line without screwing around with the reported stops due to fog, is on the order of 340+ NM. That is beyond the no-reserve range of the helicopter which is 300NM (per the book). They would have had to stop for fuel during one or more of the stops they made as they scudded their way down the Labrador coast. If that was the case, then he probably wasn't over gross. But the report doesn't provide that level of detail. So we can't be sure. Nevertheless, over gross was not a factor in this accident.
Regardless, one cannot but agree that there was a significant lack of airmanship demonstrated.