212 Recovered
 

Two good things about this accident. One, the pilot swam and then walked away and two, all the rotor blades, such as they are shown, seemed to remain attached to the grips. Not a strap pin failure. I can't say I've ever seen a blade ripped in half longetudinally like that before but who knows if that was impact damage or started earlier. Apologies if the link is not clickable.

https://www.mtshastanews.com/picture...na/7940522002/

What was the cause of the accident as first reported. Loss of control, eng failure ect. ?
The news report just states the helicopter crashed and all the photos are of the recovery. So was the blade part of the accident scenario or damaged on impact or damaged during recovery. Just looking for some context as to what happened.

I don't know if anyone outside of the people directly involved know anything other than what eyewitnesses have said. One citizen said she heard a " boom" but it is impossible to know if that was pre or post contact. I did see an early statement that perhaps due to a lowered lake level a bucket snag might have occurred but I'd guess anyone flying a bucket would be cautious to catch that before a bad outcome. From things I read it was not possible to know if it happened on the inbound or outbound segment of the dip. Don't know if it was a long line or belly hook suspension. Just glad there were no injuries.