I havent seen the video high NR, so it appears it was me, and not you, that was shooting from the hip and uniformed. Sorry.
However, I do remain suprised that a Huey crew of their training would not have had an easily achieveable "out" such as an autorotative landing area (was the track available?) clear of people. An empty Huey like that has ample auto potential as I am sure you are aware. But more importantly: do we need to speculate on this at this particularly sensitive time?