I've been questioning his motives for going in there all day and still can't understand a logical reasoning for taking such a decision to land in there - it's just lunacy.
Helicopters are being treated like taxis, "ara yea, park her up in the car park there with the other cars, twill be grand"
I was at a corporate event near Kenmare there recently, two EC130s and a 206 were called in to move 40 people from a VERY large pier to a hotel in Killarney, absolutely everything movable in the nearest 20-30m was removed from the pier, the place was cordoned off and the helicopters were very professional in coordinating their efforts, dispite being from 2 different companies (the EC130s were together).. every effort was made to ensure that safety was the priority (I can see people firing back at me because this was a pier - I didn't make that decision, but if you saw the pier, it's a very big place, you could land 4 helis in there safely, it's like a pier/car park).
It looked like you could barely swing a robbie in the space he was landing in.. was there any foresight?? I'm not an experienced pilot, I'm still finishing off my qualifications but I can still have the common sense to see it's not safe there - jesus, I'd prefer to land in a field and tell them to get a taxi if they were so inclined.
I'm not trying to slate the Pilot, he probably did the best he could after he got into difficulty, but the question really sticks out as to why he would try and land such a large helicopter in there.. it's a bloody town - "what if anything went wrong".. I agree with the last post there by OEI and Still Flying, the pilot has the final say - he's in charge after all