Wow! That's gotta be about as damaged as 60 blade can get and still fly. It's nice to be good and it's even better to be lucky too.
Brings up some fine memories of a blade change we had to do on an A model in a field in rural West Germany back in 1987. The middle of winter as I recall. While it was often possible to make a temporary repair with speed tape after the occasional tree trimming incident, field replacement of the blade was necessary if the damage was anything more that minor. No doubt about this one!
The lateral vibration caused by that much missing material must have been pretty severe. I wonder how many IPS that would have read on the old Vibrex. I'd be concerned about the condition of the rotor hub and transmission after that. I guess they will have considered all that before flying it out of there...
Heckuva good outcome. Pilots and Sikorsky engineers did well.
westhawk