Which suggests it wasn't quite as "inky black" as some have suggested. Yes, there is a heli-pad on top of the main islet (easily seen on Google Maps) but what is also noticeable are the cable-car wires stretching from the small harbour up to just under the heli-pad (at 1:22 in video). If the ceiling was low, could the SAR aircraft have landed at the harbour instead of the heli-pad, and struck the wires possibly with the tail rotor after take-off? "Skewed, unsteady flight"? If the TRGB then broke off, the sequence of events leading to the condition of the wreckage is not hard to visualise.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...!4d131.8668421

The tail was found "114 meters from the fuselage" according to news reports.
https://news.imaeil.com/inc/photos/2...94287036_l.jpg

There wasn't any power to that rotor when it hit the sea so it departed in the air. A clean break at an assembly point?

From the almost damaged free picture of that tail boom it couldn't have been chopped off by the main rotor.....what would cause it to separate in flight so cleanly?

Outwest it does not seem to have been chopped off.
Like Fareast says, looks like a clean separation at the transport joint.

Poor Airbus.

Just when they convince themselves that the main rotor system won’t fall off anymore, a tail boom departs the scene.
Standing by for the Airbus press release that they have found the tail boom attachment bolts in a tool box*



* Referring of course to their initial claim they had the “parts” that should have attached the MRGB in the Norwegian 225.

there are quite a few other video examples where the tailbooms depart the aircraft without being struck by the MRB's.
In those, its clearly an overloaded scenario dependent on the torque applied. The weakest point loses the fight.
What caused that in this case will be determined I am sure.

Also to be considered - the point, where you find parts on the seabed - doesn´t automatically mean, that they dropped in the water vertical above that point.
Depending on current, shape, weight, trapped air, parts can travel quite a distance before hitting the ground.

yeah, i know, thats what i was saying. I agreed with you saying theres many more examples of that out there.

I think you missed my point, which was that exactly. It was NOT chopped off.

Thats true, but you still can't dismiss the lack of damage to both the boom itself and the TR blades, suggesting it departed with plenty of time for the blades to slow down before impact with the water....

Yes sorry about that. Must read more carefully.

One of these threads
 

Yet again people died in an EC225 and still we have armchair experts jumping to conclusions and most likely being proved wrong, again. I have heard the ‘it’s ok to speculate’ argument time and time again. When people are dead and their bodies are missing it just is not ok to speculate that it was likely to be two of the dead’s fault until there is at least some evidence to back that up. Two of you armchair warriors already have form if anybody cares to look at the Norwegian 225 thread. Maybe I should speculate and imply that you are receiving payment from Airbus to influence opinion on this public forum? I don’t believe that, but what has been implied here is worse. You denigrate the professions involved here with your pathetic amateur sleuth work!

Wooo buddy, I'm not jumping to any conclusions at all, just stating the obvious that the tail boom and TR was basically damage free according to the picture. I, as you and everyone else have no idea on how or why it departed the a/c, but it sure looks like it did.

Hompy - neat move there seizing the moral high ground and then dumping your own biases as an aside. Classy.