Standing on the shore.....heard a helicopter coming.....looked up and was just to about 1 o'clock position at about 500 feet, approximately 350 yards offshore.
I thought he was a bit low, but was flying level with no deviations, parallel to the coastline. Aircraft was operating as normal, engine sounded normal, was no evidence of any problems.
Looked back to the ground and at that same instant K-BLAM.....very loud metallic separation sound, looked back up and was already inverted and heading straight in.
Aircraft hit the water at a 12 o'clock position from where located on the bank. Did not see the blades splash, as was watching it hit the water. Was pretty shaken up, but watched as a person in a kayak paddled out to the site and recovered some body parts, put them on the bow of the kayak and paddled to position on the bank. Was not a pretty site, lungs and attached esophagus, had enough of that and left the scene.
Returned almost a month to the day after seeing the reward offered on the internet. Using side scan sonar, located blade one quite quickly, about thirty minutes searching from where aircraft was observed going in. Dropped a buoy on the site, 11.5 feet of water, my buddy hopped over, visibility very limited, no more than 1.5 - two feet..... tied a rope and buoy to the blade and recovered it. The blade as in the picture had the chunk broken out of the tip, but the chunk was still just barley attached by a bit of aluminum, and remained that way when turned over to the FAA.
Unfortunately did not have any more air on board and was forced to abort recovering blade two. Returned the next day with adequate air and searched...and searched....found some more anomalies on the bottom at site of blade one, got a grapple hook on them but was unable to lift them, looks like part of the air frame and one of the skids. Did not dive them as was more interested in the other rotor. Took many pictures of the bottom, don't know how I missed seeing blade two on the monitor but I did.
Returned home and downloaded the images. Looks to be part of the skid, and more airframe from what I can tell. Then upon review of the remaining images, there it was...blade two lying all by itself, not far from blade ones position. Close inspection you can clearly see the rotor hub, and complete blade lying on the bottom.
Blade ones hub was still full of oil, although the seal was compromised by the twisting of the metal. I do not believe it was mast bumping, as the aircraft was flying straight and level, with no apparent issues until it went K-BLAM, in an instant and went in.
The chunk that failed out of the blade looked as though it was cut with a scalpel on the spar side, a very clean cut, not something that would have happened on impact I believe. The two sides of the chunk are ragged separations, not perfectly straight and clean as the spar side failure. From a layman's view, looked like the chunk came out of the blade, causing the rotors to be out of balance, shearing them off the mast.
this is blade two....
notice the scale 51 feet.....blade is about 20 feet
and this is the airframe parts, I believe part of the skid...and cabin...
