Originally Posted by
helispotter
Those are my sentiments as well. Looking at the fairly high resolution photo posted by logansi (post #69) at first I thought
those grey tubes hanging out the front were related to the tail rotor controls. But then I realised that just wouldn't be possible to still have had a safe landing. The pedal linkages would be somewhat back from the front edge of the forward end of the cabin floor, per attached photo from www of an EC130B4 cabin, and in any case concentrated to the left side. So are those tubes simply support braces for the forward end of the cabin? Something grey just visible on RHS forward in image below.
Also, in the audio of footage of VH-XH9 landing, there also
seems to be an unusual rotor noise, perhaps of the order of once per revolution of the main rotor. I thought that may be due to damage to the main rotor but that isn't obvious in photos I have seen. So it it perhaps just airflow noise over the shattered cockpit which wouldn't exist on an intact EC130? Or am I reading too much into what I hear?
The grey tubes are probably the air-conditioning ducts hanging off, for avionics cooling and passenger comfort. The aircon evaporators are usually up the front there. You can see the aircon punka vent hanging off the right side of the instrument panel in the frozen shot showing the helicopter in the red circle. Also, I see how you think they may be related to the tail rotor pedals, as they may be the interconnect to the redundant middle set of pedals not in use. The primary left pedals tubes go directly aft along a series of bellcranks and flight control system tubes. Having the co-pilot pedals tubes hanging might not bind up or restrict any use of the pilot pedals.
The unusual rotor noise may have been plastic, or fabric, FOD or something loose from the smashed up cockpit egressing up into the rotor blades and sticking onto the leading edge, causing that unusual noise. And I'd guess that during rapid rotor shutdown with the rotor brake, that whatever may have been on the rotor blades has just fallen off onto the ground, just a guess due to so many loose items in the crash. Most likely you will never know as evidence of that just falls off, not that it would be investigated due to rotor noise seemingly not the cause of the other aircraft crash.