Enginne Instrumentation
Yep, I totally agree that the data 'up to the point of failure' is definitely valid data, and after the fact is is the best monday morning quarter back you can have. Of the three indications the crew had (or could have had) was oil temp, vibration, and rotor speed(?). While I haven't been able to read the FDR for timing of the indications, my experience is that none of these indications would have been of significant value to cause any experienced pilot to take immediate action to shut the engine down wothout some anlysis, and in this case he would not have been successful in preventing such a disturbing failure. Even had he been looking directly at the cockpit instruments for this particular engine they are not of sufficient accuracy/detail (such as later provided by the FDR printout) to tell the PIC to shut down the engine in the time span he was faced with.