A lot of people are criticizing this EC135 pilot for not landing sooner. We know the pilot had an engine failure - he reported that to the Tower as his reason for returning. Once the engine quit, he had a couple of things to do (e.g. secure the engine, set OEI power, attain best OEI speed, start a turn back to the airport). A lot going on and a lot going through his mind. Sure, these things don't take forever, but they eat up seconds. And in his case, he only had seconds. (And honestly, who among us - actual pilots, that is - thinks that if we get a fire, our helicopter will come apart so quickly? That's some pretty scary !!!!!) A lot of people assume that he also knew that he was on fire. We do not know this...yet. But we will. Maybe it was not a catastrophic engine failure. Maybe the fire was aft of the detectors and did not set them off (which is what it looks like to me).
At PHI, when I checked out in the BO-105, we were anecdotally told of an incident in which an in-flight fire occurred, but the tail boom fell off before the guy could get it on the ground (or perhaps it was just after he landed on the water - I forget). The point was to take EVERY fire light seriously. Perform a tight turn to see if you were leaving a smoke trail, or look at your shadow on the water if you could see it...or have a pax slide the rear door open and look. Those things were all well and good, but in the summer, I'd often climb that Bolkow up to 4,500 or 5,500 feet where the air was cool, the viz was better and there was less traffic. And it would take at least a minute or two to get down, even in a screaming descent. Which brings me to my point: What if the EC135 pilot had been higher...higher to the point that he could not get it on the ground quickly enough even if he had decided to LAND IMMEDIATELY? I cannot say for sure what I would do in this very specific case, but with an engine out and that big airport right behind me, with the field boundary nearly within gliding distance, I might have just turned around and gone back too. Until we hear what this EC135 guy has to say, I'm going to give him a huge benefit of the doubt.