Old and blurry, but looks like was overloaded and instead of letting rotor droop he kicked in pedal to spin back and save the aircraft then felt he could pull it off by continuing to circle and spin to gain altitude then realized that wasn't going to work?

Thoughts?

Any stories out there of something similar you've done?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NenLHFSKvfE

Sorry, I thought I pasted it.  

For real, it looks like he realizes he can't make the climbout and/or got rotor droop (doesn't happen as fast in a UH-1) and used right pedal to give him a little more holding power, then he realizes he can climb by doing that and tries to keep the rotation but then seems to struggle to control it at that point.

I would assume this is a high altitude location given the spanish nature so power would certainly be limited.

that he lost tail rotor authority after M/R droop, tried to fly it out with what altitude he had, and got real lucky in getting back to the LZ.

Pretty common occurence with B and C model UH-1's in RVN.  You can pull it off if you have a runway to settle back down on if you don't get enough airspeed while in ground effect to climb out.  Swapping ends was not uncommon followed by a hovering auto and another attempt.

need to consider if the pilot could even manipulate controls effectively while spinning .

Ur out in a field with this line of thought.

They were way to heavy and it was a attempt that could have ended a lot worse....