Re: the Mi-8
A quick google revealed the following info (their translation, not mine):
An Ми-8 with parachuters onboard near Khabarovsk the reducer of the tail screw (tailrotor gearbox?) of the helicopter has collapsed.
For four and a half of an hour before accident near Nefteyugansk approximately in 40 km from Khabarovsk in area of air station other military helicopter Mi-8 has had an accident. State of emergency has occured nearby 10:30 on local time (3:30 on Moscow). The chief of regional management ГО and ЧС Ivan Sych has informed "Interfax" from a place of incident, that in the helicopter there were three members of crew and eight parachuters.
According to eyewitnesses, the machine, doing greater circles, the beginnings quickly to fall. However falling is closer to the ground was slowed down. The crew has done the utmost to level the rotary-wing machine and to make an emergency landing with the least losses, informs RIA of "News".
On preliminary data, the reason of falling of the military helicopter became technical malfunction of the machine.
The chief of the press-service of the Air Forces of Russia colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky has informed, that during планого десантирования at height of 1200 m the reducer of the tail screw of the helicopter has collapsed.
After that the commander of crew, captain Andrey Ivanenko has allowed a command to eight parachuters to leave the machine, and itself has continued to keep the helicopter at safe height, allocating it from technical and inhabited constructions. After десантирования the helicopter has made rigid (hard?) landing.
Three pilots have was traumatized all of a various degree of weight (severity?) and have been hospitalized. The commander of the crew who has received crisis of both legs has seriously suffered only.
Earlier the chief of regional management ГО and ЧС Ivan Sych has told, that the helicopter at movement has hooked the back screw on a parachute of the jumped parachuter and has made an emergency landing. The parachuter also has suffered and has been hospitalized.
Another summary in English gave this:
It was in 2005 near Khabarovsk. At an altitude of 1200 m tail rotor of Mi-8 helicopter collapsed. Paratroopers were ordered to jump out, after that helicopter made a hard landing. Members of a crew were injured, but everyone survived.
So it looks as if the outcome was not as awful as might have been expected. It still doen't explain why no attempt was made to gain forward speed once clear of the decending parachutes.