"Mark Six, how do you know ? Have you seen the feathers and bird guts on the TR ?
Your guess is as good as anyone's, Savoia included."
ReverseFlight, I'm not guessing anything, just stating that bird strike is still under consideration "as far as I know", because this was the original theory and I haven't seen or heard anything further which discounts it as a cause.
From a letter sent to AW owners:
"... Immdeiately after the notification of the event, based on the reported conditions of the aircraft, AgustasWestland started a detailed analysis and a complete review of the Tail Rotor log reports; no aircraft issues were found.
Furthermore, based on the first examination of the recovered aircraft it appears that the incident effects are fully compatible with an external Foreign Object Damage (FOD), which caused a tail rotor imbalance damaging the components of the anti-torque system."