Zoomed in on the hoisting of that wreckage out the mud shows the box beam cracked away from the fuselage right at the broom closet.  

We have found cracks there before on 407s.

206 has the same design.

I bet that area hadn't been properly inspected since 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffyr8jRv_yY

Cracked box beam at broom closet started to tear apart, roof ripping back like a spam can opening, pitching rotor disk back sending the rear of the disk down chopping tailboom clean off one rivet line aft of T/boom break,  T/R Control tube being cleanly severed as evidence in recently released B-rolls.

Rest of the aerodynamic forces continued to rip box beam wrenching it violently from fuselage as the whole thing went into free fall.  

That's what happened folks.  3000%  

Still think a ballistic chute is a bad idea?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Especially when you don't know if your aircraft was truly "inspected" in that area....or if it was pencil coolwhipped.

And even if it was "inspected,"  How much experience did that young guy have, working by himself, to even know what to look for????

Cuz you know they probably didn't have any high time, crusty old light ship, experienced grumpy mechanics like down in the GOM doing inspections working on that thing

There's no way I'd pilot a heli unless I knew it was being maintained by one of the Big Boys, ...PHI, Bristow, CHC. etc  

You really show your ignorance if you think a 206L4 built in TWO THOUSAND AND FOUR with less than 10,000 hours on it is gonna rip its roof off with 100lbs of fuel and 400lbs of family on board.  There are straight L’s made in the 70s with 30-40k hours on em still ripping 1400lbs off the ground all day every day with all the chip lights illuminated and enough mud in the cabin ceiling to make you think the airframe is covered in feces, and none of them have ever had their roofs ripped off or anything even close to it.  And those crusty grumpy old GOM mechanics you speak of are blind drunk 90% of the time and prefer to watch loose rivets and longeron cracks to “see what it does”.

Please don’t act like you’re gods gift to 206 maintenance because you flew at RLC for a year as a baby.

When you have loose rivets, cracks, or loose airframe joints and continue flying it, the material rubbing against itself frets and creates a black paste of worn off metal material.  It’s called mud and it’s common to see in high cycle high weight operations with old airframes.

Yes I really do think an aircraft that was poorly maintained with less than 10,000 hrs could indeed rip it's own roof off what with such a light load.........especially if there's a complete crack going all the way across the box beam with only one inch of metal left to break.

I promise you that thing probably had some corrosion because it's a well known fact it was first flying around in the GOM for the first half of it's life from 2004 to 2016.  Where I know for a fact it was getting all the TLC it needed, because I probably worked on it.

Then it was sold to Meridian and they leased it out to NYC helis for tours.  You think it got looked at since 2016?  Did it go thru refurb? Highly doubt it.

I used to watch our Chalk buckets get scheduled in for refurb every 10 years where they got tore down to the skeleton to be inspected for cracks.....just like this one probably had.

You guys have absolutely no fkin clue the type of work I've seen done to these things.  Because if you did, you'd never fly in them again.

Go visit Meridian and tell me they push out crap with cracks in the ceiling.  Go visit the gulf and tell me they’re cracking their stuff out in 6000 hours of people moving when utility operators pushing gross weight limits can’t do the same.  Go visit every single bottom barrel mom and pop  ag operator spraying corrosive garbage out of 206s for 8 hours a day and tell me about their incredible maintenance that is the thin line between safe operations and catastrophic failure. You seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.  You think one of the newest and lowest time 206s out there would manifest some fatal flaw crack while it’s flying tours after a major overhaul by a highly reputable repair station when meanwhile tons of us are literally beating the living crap out of these things and they refuse to let us down.

I had a roof so cracked out that it made a 2per banging noise that reverberated through the airframe as soon as I hit 60 knots.  That thing was 55 years old and had 35,000 hard hours on it, and it still got me home just fine every night after hitting gross weight on every lift for 300 cycles a day.  She got retired eventually BUT THE ROOF NEVER RIPPED THE F OFF.

Go work for CNN or shut up with your “3000% folks!” wannabe know-it-all crap.

day-um the stupid weirdo guru got hisass handed to him

fortunately for me, I do not know that much about the 206 but I did enjoy him getting hisass handed to him

Have to agree with the OP. He explains it pretty well.  If realexperience206 was flying an aircraft with the noises and vibrations he says his aircraft was developing , I would question his "real" experience and probably also his sanity !!

I question my sanity every day there egg roll.

Ya me too, mainly, why am I even on this forum !!

I don’t know anything about the flight line mechanics but I can tell you about the DOM. I worked with him in the GOM and he is a top notch mechanic. I have a lot of respect for him and you can believe if he knew anything about an issue with the a/c it would not have been flying. 

What is with the rumor the MR transmission had just undergone some sort of maintenance?  Heard from a mechanical engineer not working in the field - just asking.  Thanks.