Heliduck Observation 1 - The quantity & quality(?!?!) of comment on an incident is proportional to the size of the machine involved. Knew a bloke who clipped a tree in an R44 once & he lost his job with barely a whisper on pprune - hero to zero!
Heliduck Observation 2 - As mentioned previously those of us not present don't know the facts & therefore shouldn't comment, but I will anyway. The way I see it there is only 2 possible scenarios which took place - the pilot knew the trees were there & decided to fly through them with his rotor blades or the pilot didn't know the trees were there & inadvertently (read **** himself) flew through them with his rotor blades. Either way, with most employers he would be called a few things, but hero isn't one of them.
Heliduck Observation 3 - Bloody hell they were lucky! I'm very happy they all walked away from that one. I couldn't imagine the stress levels in the cockpit going inadvertent IMC that close to trees(if that's what happened). A good day for all that they landed skids down, & after surviving that experience the pilot will no doubt have different thought processes if ever faced with those decisions again.