nigelh,
You have just repeated and agreed with the main gist of what I had written!
However, as some of us do know, nothing seems 'OTT' compared to a major component failure on a helicopter. One esteemed poster here tragically lost his son to a helicopter accident. I've also lost enough friends and colleagues to aviation accidents over the last thirty years (including my closest friend) to understand at least some of the resulting issues.
On the 11th October 1979 I came very close to having it happen to me when a MRB departure was found to be immediately imminent from our aircraft, due to terminal metal fatigue of the main spar. Thankfully we were safely on the ground when the full implications of what would have occurred a few minutes later were realised. The groundcrew were horrified at what was found, so were we. The main 'D' spar was cracked through, all but for the "nose", an area not much bigger than a ten pence piece; this was on a 7 tonne helicopter. Apparently the crack had spread very rapidly, probably all of it on our 45 minute sortie. Less than five minutes before we had been flying at 140 kts.
However, as my comments are seen as OTT, so be it; I'll participate no more after this, especially as it's actually easier to keep well intentioned advice to one's self.