Re: Three Dead....Another Night Bad Weather Flight Over Dark Terrain
From the info given above seems we are still not really sure what happened here, though IMC LOC is the understandable presumption. From the various weather reports, I wouldn't have thought even BKN 600ft and 3 miles vis over the water with reasonable (I assume) ground lighting nearby should have been too marginal for even a good VFR pilot. Of course we don't know what very local conditions were, but if the witness saw the helo go behind/into a cloud it must have been clearish around that, not complete murk.
Can't see that NVGs are a big issue in this case and that they would have made the difference.
What we don't know was whether the pilot was IR - we presume not. Was the heli IFR equipped - again, I assume not. 4 axis autopilot on a 105? Surely no way. Even so with presumably sea below why would he have not stayed low enough and around enough lighting to maintain visual contact? Maybe someone who know more about the exact area can comment. Maybe extreme turbulence from CB activity contributed to LOC?
Yes, an IR pilot with an IFR equipped helo would have made resuming ground contact reasonably straightforward but I still wonder if good practice even with a VFR pilot and helo could have avoided this accident.