"Brain must have been screaming "mechanical" to miss the chance to dump into wind down the valley.[/QUOTE]
That's an very good advice!
We had the same in our company a few years ago! Simple LTE in 1000ft ground, Heli starts spinning, pilots was shure that he lost the tailrotor!
So he startet autorotation and crashed in a village!
Nothing mechanical was found! If he speeds up with nose down nothing happend.....