Cows Getting Bigger has given us an appropriate reminder of what Brian and others are striving to achieve.
So now I'm going to crave the indulgence of the forum to ask a question of Bast0n, if I may:
Baston:
I am also of the opinion as a bit of a pragmatist that to believe that this aircraft flew quite happily across the sea and then somehow a fault - undisclosed - hurled it into the hillside is not believable at any level.
back in 2006 I wrote the following comment in
this thread :
talking about a B205A pilot whose tail-rotor pitch link had failed in flight, giving him the equivalent of around 200%+ full-right pedal
...had the same malfunction just as he was positioning a 205A to pick up an underslung load at Saiq in Oman (6300 ft amsl, temp at that time of year around 20 degrees). I gather he rolled the throttle shut and landed right next to the USL on the other side from the Jebel VOR who was waiting to hook-up. Don't know how many rotations the aircraft made, but the aircraft landed level and was completely undamaged. Top bit of flying.
It gave me pause for thought, as only the day before I'd been flying the same aircraft for the artillery cadets at Izki. Usual stuff - load the aircraft up full, quick circuit to make sure they're all happy then off at low level (SOAF version) across the bundu to give them their moneysworth. If that same malfunction had occurred just a few flying-hours earlier, would anyone have bothered to look for the pitch-change link in the wreckage or would it have just gone down as yet another low-flying-pilot-cocks-it-up-bigtime? It didn't stop me from operating at low altitude, but I spent a great deal more attention going through the "what-ifs" when doing so...
I take it from your quote that you would not have believed (at any level) a pitch-link failure could have occurred had I crashed the previous day? Not when there's a convenient pilot to blame it on?