I wonder if the tail rotor detached causing the spin, resulting the following unplanned disassembly.

Looks like mechanical issue causing gearbox/rotors to detach, or possibly low-g/abrupt control input scenario. All purely speculation of course.

What a terrible incident.

The loss of a T/R gearbox will also cause a large cg shift and nose-down pitch - the pilot might pull back to correct it and there goes the mast bump?

We lost a Huey in 1981 when a T/R blade separated, the unbalanced gearbox came out, fuselage yaw, pitch and roll, mast bump, rotor separation, blade came through the left cockpit, took off the tailboom, and all in freefall.

PLEASE READ THE THREAD BEFORE COMMENTING. Chances are, your thoughts have already been commented by someone already.

Whatever caused the tail to separate would have been felt by the pilot as a TR failure and we would all at that stage dump the lever - any cyclic input would likely be to try to keep speed (he won't have known the tail boom was completely gone) but he would have had zero directional control.

You can't simulate this type of failure and any control inputs the pilot made would have been fruitless.

What cause the separation of the MR and what looks like the top of the MRGB from the fuselage? Who knows, but in that condition the stresses must have been very high and any weaknesses in the transmission system would have been pushed to breaking point.

From the point of tail boom separation the chances of a good outcome are vanishingly small.

RIP.

Sadly, some of the drivel is coming from pilots too!

When you are humming along at 80-100kts and there is a sudden loss of drive to the trail rotor that does not result in a massive uncontrollable yaw. In forward flight you have a lot of vertical hardware hanging off the206L tail boom to give you some directional control. Lower the collective lever to reduce the torque in the rotor system and you're back in business with a fighting chance. Yaw to the left with loss of drive to the tail rotor in the 206?

Plenty of drivel and focus upon a single cause none of which is based upon any ascertainable fact(s).

However there is a gem of insight that serves to set the wagon back upright upon its wheels.

Thanks to Gullibell for offering his excellent insight, knowledge , and attention to detail which should serve as an attention getter to so many here.

The rest of you need to get back into the books and RFM for the aircraft you are flying (American versions and not the French or Russian versions).

Many comments down the Reddit post, someone has produced a zoomed-in version of the video which shows the whole accident. I'm too new to post URLs, but it's address is streamable dot com slash 56ttmc.

11 seconds into that, it seems to show a kink/break happen in the tail boom, which is prior to the uncontrolled yaw that happens immediately after.

The images are obviously very grainy, however.

Who the hell is this clown commenting for the UK Sun?

Well it is The Sun, would you expect anything less……

A disseminator of fake news? 'Cause there certainly is not much fact in that report!

”Aviation analyst Julian Bray suggested the critical component, which holds the rotor system in place, may have failed mid-flight and led to the deaths of all six people on board.”

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/julian-bray-515405258

Yep, the aviation expert picked it. The accident helicopter was the super stretched nine seat version...but I don't understand what the Jesus bolt has to do with any of this....and yes quite obviously the engine was working as the rotors were seen to be spinning after they detached from the helicopter body. Obviously I'm not as expert as he.

Although the image is grainy, it seems much more like yaw right than yaw left which would be consistent with a tail rotor/boom/drive failure on a US rotation rotor system.

After that with no directional control, survivability is unlikely - a vertical auto, if achieved would be difficult to maintain and assessing the height at the bottom to cushion the water entry would be nigh on impossible.

Very Terrible! No chance!
My “Guess” is that the Transmission/Nodamatic mounts broke and off it flew causing the other damage.
PS: I have over 20,000 helicopter hours on 13 different types, including the 206L.

It would be interesting to see the maintenance log, any corrosion related work and if there was any previous accident history.
Such a horrible tragedy, and little they could do to change the outcome.
What was supposed to be wonderful family trip and it ends like this.

Yep. My guess is your guess is on the money. They will unravel what happened soon enough.

This is the part they will be looking for. If the link assembly of the nodal beam system breaks you are in a spot of bother.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ced6547047.png

First thing that came to my mind when watching the video was this incident from 2003…
https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/188940

RiP Ian (Shoo), Neville and James.