What happened on that dark cold night was that the Captain of that a/c heard the words: land immediately but convinced himself that this would all be OK and physically flying his currently "flyable" helicopter into a bitterly cold wet place surely could wait a little longer. He stretched it and stretched it....he went into denial hoping to glimpse land.
For clarification it was daylight flying and the SS was right on the limit @ 2.5 metres, CGR491 had SS4 floats installed even though SAC pitched these as SS5.
PIC wasn't aware of wet temperature bulb issue, checklist was too vague in getting to land immediately status (should have been a memory item).
No secondary indications of MRGB issue so PIC carried on flying back to land i.e. land as soon as possible. If PIC was aware of these issues I honestly believe he would have ditched. They tried their best too late once the T/R drive failed on them.
We can point fingers of blame at many factors as the TSB report quite rightly has i.e. SAC, FAA, and even Cougar for not picking up on the galled studs during filter changeout. It's not bringing anybody back.
All we can do is try and prevent this happening again, that's why one of the widows of 491 wants answers on the studs and an explanation for the lack of effective response to the Broome 2008 stud failure. How on earth the botch repair job to the Broome stud prior to failure was even approved by SAC stuns me never mind how they then dealt with the issue. SAC will no doubt try to cover themselves with the AMM but the proper action would have been change the studs immediately. For me that is gross negligance and SAC should be held accountable to the full extent of the law.
30-minute run-dry should be a given in our environment, not a work-around. SAC have let us all down here.
Safe flying
Max