it will be interesting to see if any comments are made in the final report about the possibility of others surviving had a ditching been attempted earlier
No idea what you mean? Of course more would have survived - this was not a ditching in the conventional sense. It was a desprately sad attempt by the crew to deal with an unexpected tail rotor drive failure at low altitude - hence the high speed and impact forces. By all accounts they did as well as could possibly be expected of them in dealing with the final failure. 5 minutes earlier it would have been a controlled landing.