Originally Posted by
malabo
Civilian here, some questions on why it took a while to find..
The crash happened In the mountains during a snow storm.
From the weather descriptions available, about 8 inches of snow fell during that timeframe.
Flown IFR lots in winter, icing is pretty rare - tips run warm, and usually you climb out of rain, through a sleet layer into snow. Nothing sticking to the blades.
I had the chance to fly in icing conditions a couple of decades ago, in a Blackhawk, but the blade de-ice worked.
Interestingly, when we landed we were reminded that the horizontal stab does not have de-ice blankets. There was still a nice thick layer of snow / ice on the horizontal stab when we did our post flght.
I find it odd that you think that ice will not accumulate on a rotor blade. (If you don't think that, sorry, that's how it came off in your post).