The 101 has a nasty habit of catastrophic failures and the RFM contains a note within Section 8 Emergency Procedures for the BK117 that warns to shutdown the engine immediately if a loss or flucuation of N2 indication occurs. Nice question arises....what if there is no Engine Chip Light illuminated but you do get the flucuation and then a loss of N2 indication....do you now shut down the engine or must you wait for the Engine Chip Light to illuminate? The 101 has come a long way from its inception...I can still remember the almost continous Hot End inspections we had to do. Now we seem to be going from overhaul to overhaul on our two aircraft.
Scattercat....did you get an engine chip warning prior to failure 80nm offshore?