Is there some legal/regulatory/philosophical reason why the accepted terminology cannot be used - the aircraft ditched.
How can an aircraft be considered to have landed on the water without a tail rotor? As was the case with Puma G-TIGK, I never cease to be amazed at the skill of pilots who control and safely emerge from a failure that cannot truly be simulated or practiced.
If one were to examine the causes of all failures in offshore operations between 1995 and 2003 it can be seen that 31% of the total are technically related and 45% of those are tail rotor failures.
Whilst it is true that these reported tail rotor failures include those which have a pilot influence - both directly and indirectly - it is considered that a significant number could have been prevented with the use of Vibration Monitoring Systems.
Systems which are capable of monitoring the tail rotor and drive components are now available and will, in the near future, be fitted to a number of aircraft operating in the GOM (Bell are working on an in-house implementation).
It would be progress indeed if monitoring could have an impact upon one of the significant causes of accidents.