Read thru it several times. The clunk is the big mystery. Drop something in the cockpit, lean forward teaching, inadvertently hit the AP/SAS cutoff?

What say you 135 experts?

Aircraft knows.  And I am sure AMC has him tight lipped.   He knows what happened   Even if he made a mistake he probably won't admit it or the company won't have him admit.  

not a different one but THAT aircraft. 

Flying the crashed one really knows.  Hope he reads these comments and confesses up 

One report said all OK, another said the pilot has serious injuries.

What were those injuries and did the pilot recover? Is he back flying?

Good job either way.

https://www.ems1.com/helicopter-crash/ntsb-exact-cause-undetermined-in-pa-medical-helicopter-crash

Not sure I would say crashing a perfectly good aircraft is a good job.

it got away frok him and he over controlled as if flying an airplane.  Like a high speed upset in a jet at 35k with 2 degrees of flap still on at the cruise to get up on "the step" - dumb (the flap stuff) and gotta be scary as he llll.

Never liked the 135.   Had good experience with the 350 and 365.

https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/104517/pdf 

Hitting the SAS/AP cutoff would not cause that much loss of control, so I question that assessment.

Maybe the NTSB investigator should have done a Vulcan mind meld on the pilot to see how he screwed the pooch?

he fell asleep or did the micro-sleep thing then awoke in an unusual attitude.  I'm not confident with the aerodynamic load balances on the 135.  Just don't like the aircraft.

Knowingly hitting the SAS cutoff button with your hand around the cyclic and being ready the aircraft will merely lurch 10 degrees in roll and a 5 degree nose down before you grab it and bring it back and it will now fly like a very expensive R22.  However if you are hands off and you hit the button with the corner of the ipad especially if you have some pressure on the stick from the ipad resting on it and you have a little bit of momentum as you are bring it past the stick to put it in the door pocket then that stick is going to get pushed after hitting the button and you are very quickly going to end up looking at the ground and rolling to the right.  

Pilot said he didnt remember the accident but looking at his interview in the docket he actually remembers everything about the day.  The pickup at sending hospital, reviewing the charts and helipad since he hadnt been there in a long time, his communications with approach and clearance to descend are all there.  Then.....he forgets the 2 second surrounding what he was doing before the aircraft ended up in a nose dive and right roll.  His memory picks back up again in the dive and fighting the aircraft, leveling out, checking different landing sights and then picking the spot where he tried to land it and how the aircraft had no power and everything right up till impact.  Just of course the most important 2 second of what were doing with your hands at the moment of the upset, thats gone.

His distance from the hospital was only 6 miles or 3 minutes, right at the point where he would have finished taking his last view of the airspace and the LZ listing for the hospital on the ipad before putting it away and getting ready to kick off the upper modes of the autopilot to land.  I dont believe he hit the SAS cut off while mistakening it for the upper mode disconnect because his hand would have been on the cyclic and would have been a non event other than embarrassing and getting the attention of the crew in the back while he reengaged it.  He was hands off and hit the switch, pressure from the ipad pushed the stick out of neutral position making a large attitude upset and combined with the delay in getting hands on controls is what allowed the aircraft to get so nose low along with a right roll.  From there the NTSB report picks up well enough with the overspeed and manual mode of the engine causing the bottom end to end up the way it did.

If he had a little more awareness when he got it leveled out and looked at the CAD and saw the manual mode and the very low N1 and even just took 1 twist grip and added some power he could have potentially flown away and given himself time to see what happened and get both engine back.  Aircraft was old enough it didnt even have the guards on the twist grips to prevent rolling the throttle up.  There was .6nm from when he got it leveled out and flying along looking at different places till the crash site.  My guess is after having nothing but the ground out the windshield while completing a 360 right roll that task saturation and having the seat cushion sucked up there was no way he was going to be able to diagnose what just happened.  I'm happy he at least kept it upright and didnt kill anyone.

then happy he kept it upright?

Otherwise very interesting read.  Not a fan of freaking iPads in the pit.