Helicopter Accident - Why?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Warning -

this is about a crash which killed at least 6 people in AZ last Aug.

the NTSB prel. report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20010820X01734&key=1

For those familiar with rotorcraft:

given that this was a very hot day, the subject of density altitude immediately comes to mind (this craft was almost certainly near, or over max. gross) - the specs I found show hover (out of ge) at ISA + 20 degrees of 4,200. The terrain was 5,500 - but unless the craft slowed to hover, it should not have been a factor.

So -

  1. Why did it start to ‘fall’?

  2. Why did it not auto-rotate?

2

There are far too few details in order to draw any meaningful conclusions. If I had to speculate, I would say engine failure based on the surviving passanger’s account of the cabin getting very quiet before the aircraft fell. As to why it didn’t auto-rotate, it is really impossible to tell. Anything could be to blame, from the mechanical failure that caused the engine to quit to pilot error.