Anything that rides on a helicopter cargo hook must be considered expendable.
Best story I have from my Chinook days involved a all but brand new UH-1H rigged out as a Command and Control aircraft with the fancy radio console and numerous radios.
The aircraft with less than fifty flying hours on it experienced a simple enough to fix hydraulic failure due to a chafed hose. The Geniuses wearing senior rank badges decided against reasoned input to sling the Huey back to Chu Lai for repair rather than flying a mechanic with a new hose and a couple of spanners and some hydraulic fluid for a field repair.
My aircraft was tasked to do so. We got the add-on tasking late in the day and by the time we got to where the Huey was located.....Darkness fell. Our SOP had us fly a few miles offshore over the South China Sea so as to avoid any hostile fire from the NIMBY locals and NVA visitors.
Huey's generally rode good and we hauled lots of them....so this was a completely normal flight....smooth air....pretty weather...nice Moon....till about halfway home.
Then a slight bump.....a slight change in the ride of the aircraft.....and two Pilots looking at each other with a quizzical look....till one said "Uh Oh!" and a response from the FE in the rear which was something like....."Well...Golly Gee Willikers!" (but said in Soldier speak". I made a steepish turn and we could see the Huey getting very small on its way down from 3500 feet MSL breaking any speed record for that kind of helicopter. Fortunately for us it was the Recovery Team's rigging that had parted and not our donation to it.
The Army can waste money without a second thought. As it was Colonels that made the decision there was no real desire for the truth to be known I suppose.
After that we made a practice of breaking what we called "Doughnuts".....that Web Loop that slides onto the Cargo Hook and where the sliingload final clevis attaches. We stowed one on each aircraft so that in future debacles we could always swear up and down any dropped load was due to a faulty Doughnut!