This was a night time training exercise "Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the initial climb at night from a confined area landing zone, that resulted in an impact with a tree, a loss of control, and a subsequent impact with terrain." Expand 'Description' for report .
N222E BELL 222B painted in Airwolf livery, down in Huntington Beach You can see, tail rotor failure... https://www.facebook.com/reel/24429311883418391
(Also posted in the Silver forums...I'm sorry for the double-post, but I thought is may be of interest here.) That's pretty much the worst case scenario for a helicopter. Slow speed with high power applied. Speed below ETL (effective translational lift). It looks like the tail rotor gearbox failed. Your only option there is to enter autorotation immediately, then kill the engines prior to the flare before landing. In this case, they didn't have enough speed or altitude to execute that maneuver. It's the classic "coffin corner" scenario...where the helicopter is in the "shaded area" of the height/velocity chart...the "avoid" region! The pilot didn't really have any options there and I'm glad that nobody was killed.
