Funny you say that... current policy out in Hawaii is no single ship VFR interisland flight. IFR for single aircraft only. Ridiculous. Had a chopper have an gyro break on the way to Maui, they launched two ships VFR to escort the one chopper back on a clear blue day.
That's just plain silly. Ah, an IFR flight plan will put you on an even altitude... that increases your risk of being found in the Molokai Channel a thousand-fold... I see the logic now. Never mind that you can go FSS and tower-to-tower pretty much all through the Hawaiian chain, or at least it used to be you could.
Like I say... put Army Aviation decision-makers over water, watch their brains dissolve... it's a phenomenon that has been observed independently by many people of my acquaintance. They are like Southern drivers in snow flurries... they just lose their minds.
So, could they have launched one IFR to get the broken one and then they could return VFR? Or was the gyro-free one not considered to be in flyable condition?