Duncan
To respond:-
a) I believe a HIAB was used.
b) I believe the blades were removed.
c) Our engineer went straight to site on Monday morning to remove the blades and supervise the move. Thanks Jason.
d) The heli was left unattended overnight and was not touched. The farmer and Mack both very kindly offered to 'keep an eye on it' and obviously they did a great job.
5 minutes later and it would certainly have made the news in one form or other!!
I would stress again that we don't know for certain the actual cause of the problem although gearbox seems to be favourite. Obviously, we will post further.
Mike