Originally Posted by
Concentric
This is my first posting on this forum, having followed itfor several years and learned a lot from some very knowledgeable folks.
Concentric,
Nice first post.
On a 'rumor network' such as this, we find both wild speculation based on agenda and emotion, and then sometimes a little educated insight.. Thank you for the latter. Professionals here are seeking advance knowledge, exploring the circumstances to improve safety for the entire industry, across models. So in that sense it is worth doing. We just have to balance what the active investigation professionals are telling us, with due respect.
I had not noticed the distortion on the suspension bar fitting eye, I would concur that it was overloaded at time of failure. It is of course possible that a fatigue started there prior to final overload, but we probably would have heard about that already from AIBN.
I would not put much faith in mapping direction of rotor departing based on the location found. We saw the video of it like a maple seed or boomerang, not much of a direct glide path. Otherwise, your general theory of a flare makes sense. For that matter, it has already been speculated that the rotor moved back first and blades struck the tail and tail rotor.
So it comes back to the gearbox. The first report showed two pinion fracture surfaces, one looks darker than the other. Also, the smearing to the integral race is discolored differently than the rest. The lab guys are no doubt evaluating relative amounts of corrosion, and discoloration. Don't be surprised if this box had corrosion internally prior to the crash.