The NTSB are better, and, can draw on a very broad scope of resource, and skilled people. They will get whomever they need - all skills and disciplines. That said, there are also very knowledgeable posters here, who within their discipline will have great wisdom, which they may contribute. But, the people outside the investigation will not have access to all of the information gathered until a report is issued. Thus, though they might have great knowledge, and could actually hit upon causal factors, cannot be comprehensive compared to the assigned investigators. And, there will be posters here, who simply speculate, based upon whatever they think they know about whatever. It'll be up to the readers here to sift wheat from chaff. Speculation which is way off base, and has no foundation, will usually be removed by one of the moderators, just to keep the baseline up.

In the past, I have been asked by both the NTSB, and the Canadian TSB to contribute to investigations with my specific knowledge in a related discipline. But, what I could offer was just one piece of the puzzle - it takes a team, the NTSB gathers teams really well....

I will second everything in this post and add that the NTSB is the best accident investigators in the world that I know of. They are very professional, never speculate, especially in the early stages of an investigation. Look at flight TWA 800 and the hours of research that went into that conclusion. I know there are conspiracy theories out there, but those were all rebuked in their report.

I am inclined to agree with you 'something' is there; a part of the aircraft separating or puff of smoke? impossible to tell but fairly sure you have spotted something.

Company DO did a voluntary shut down/safety stand down. The CEO did not like that so fired him.
135 requires a DO to operate so the Feds shut them down.

I read this story in the NYT, this section caught my eye; I was not aware of any abnormality in the vertical profile the aircraft recorded:


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f5d042886e.png
I'm aware this might just be craptacular journalism. Regain control? I didn't know there was loss of control. Apologies if already covered.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/n...h-escobar.html

Do you have the ADSB data? That would validate this in 30 seconds.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli.../91NJ/tracklog

Squawk7700 is correct...the ADS-B data looks normal...apparently just dreadful speculative journalism from NYTimes.

Yes it is. I like the fact that it day normally the descent is gentle but in this case he lost a whopping 500 ft in 51 seconds! 🤮

Somebody composed some fictional eyewitness sightseeing flight story around the FR24 data and added a little flavour about "climbing" and "struggling to regain control".

Yes, 588.23 fpm descent - how reckless:ok:

No wonder the helicopter fell apart!

= Case closed, NTSB can go home for Easter. Thanks to NY Times for the help with this. :ugh:

Yes, along with including "majestic", "hugging" and "Billionaires' row" (at least they got the apostrophe in the right place!)

I’m surprised no-one’s yet has claimed that it was on fire before it hit the water.

we just need to wait a day or two:
https://apnews.com/article/new-york-...3d92dcbf05a28d

Seeing the transmission and mounts largely intact, the clevis ends holding, and pulling away the underlying structure, I am so curious as to what on earth happened. That is a very strong structure, and it's been opened up and pulled apart like it's nothing.

you and many of us! Bizarre. Also so strange that in 60 years, or so, of 206 ops this seems to be a unique event.

How long have Van Horn blades been around?

STC issued August 2018

One little nugget from that NYT article was a hotlink to the FlightAware database for that Aircraft: Flight Aware log for the accident aircraft

They work those things hard. I have no idea if that's a big deal for a utility helicopter, but it seems like a lot from my casual observer's point of view. 10 flights on the day of the incident, 18 the day before. I suppose that's not very different to a flying school or the like. It's a money printer for the owner.

Not a big deal---most of those flights are only 20-30 minutes. When I flew tours in Hawaii, a standard day was 8 x 55 minute tours per aircraft, and we would do that year round. There were obviously slow days in there too.

In utility, it is not uncommon for my aircraft to fly 6 or 7 hours per day on revenue Hobbs which can equate to 3 or 4 hours on the collective Hobbs depending upon type of work. Hay-bombing it is common to see 11-12 hour flight days in summer.