I remember a tale from 1974 up in the Gulf out of Normanton where a Bell47 still fitted with the duals was pressed into urgent service and picking people of the roof of station homesteads caused some anxious moments when they used them for grab handles climbing in.
heard this one also, from the horses mouth I think.
It will always be a decision you'll have to make there and then based on your specific circumstances. Not a pursuit that I would recommend for freshmen or newbies though.
had a similar situation once, swimmer in turbulent water had fallen out of a fast water canoe. swimmer had life jacket on and pax who was a rescue swimmer but no life jacket wanted to jump and help out of a Kh4. swimmer was going into calmer water, I said no, rescue man got the poos, big deal, swimmer survived, but another didn't a couple of hundred yards behind the first one, which was another story.
re this Lockyer episode, almost certainly the coroner will be poking around so everyone will be making statements or preparing to. Just make sure the ops manual is dusted off, and there's no mug pilots around who says that "what's in the ops manual no one takes notice of that" ops manual will need to be kept up to date at the date of incident, I.E. if an inquest takes a long time to convene, use one of your other copies.
cheers tet