This Helicopter was brought down by a Crane end of story!!!! For whatever reason the pilot did not see that Crane but may have done had it had high intensity lighting fitted.
Many cranes feature on NOTAMs worldwide, remind me, how many cause incidents ? Also, pray tell, what good would strobes and lights do on a foggy/cloudy day ..... the diffusion of the light in cloud wouldn't help an already disorientated pilot much !
The fact remains, the crane has been there many months, it has been in the NOTAMs for as many months, the pilot was, by all accounts, a highly experienced pilot and a regular visitor to the airspace over London.
He infringed the obstacle NOTAM and suffered the consequences, that is a fact. Taken on its own, there is very little excuse for missing that crane if you are an experienced pilot and a regular visitor to London.
But we can't take that fact on its own, what is yet to be uncovered by the AAIB is the why, and the guesses round here are that something else was going on and that the NOTAM infringement was just the icing on the cake. Not the cause.