bigskyheli,
Not too nitpick too much, but I guess you're referring to a R-22 ending up in the frontseat of the bus, not a 44 (unless this is a regular occurance of course)
And not to de-rail the thread further, what does the Hong Kong flying Club have to do with a L2 Superpuma ditching while on fire-ops??
As for your consern of downwind approaches, it's up to you (captain) to decide what you want to do. (within your and a/c's capabilities, and feeling)
As for twins OEI capabilities, comment's like,
surely the aircraft could have flown away on one engine
most likely come from people that don't have experience with twin-ops.
Almost NO twins(few exceptions though) are able to fly away from that scenario with a reasonable workingload of fuel and OGE hover (not high enough!!) I guess the outcome would have been different if the bucket was at the end of a longline, but then again it wasn't....