H&H has it right. 50% discount program. Don't remember the terms of the deal. While I did suffer through the same issues on my R44, I came late to that particular party and ran the -5's until the AD deadline. That worked out pretty well for me as it brought me the ship at a substantial discount and the timing was pretty good, with the blades calendaring out only 4 months after the replacement deadline, so I gained far more than I lost. I didn't mind doing the daily inspection or the record keeping that went along with it, and we tap tested per the US AD. Had to touch up the blade paint once as it was getting close to the bond line but that was no big deal either.
Unfortunately it is impossible to know if the owner was doing the proper inspections and easy to assume he was not. It is also impossible to know whether they would have made any difference, i.e. would the blade have passed the daily visual inspection anyway?
What is strange about this one is why was there a loss of rotor RPM? It was probably vibrating like crazy but apparently it wasn't flinging bits off (yet). Why was rotor RPM not maintained and an immediate landing accomplished? That's the real mystery. Or did I read the report wrong?