The complete NTSB accident report can be found at http://tiny.cc/helichop

They didn't place all of the blame on the landing pilot, a significant contributing factor was the second helicopter being out of position. That might not have mattered on another day but the landing pilot didn't have good visibility.

Wow that guy made the video annoying to watch. It is a shame he hasn't watched other R/C planes, he might learn that those modern electric motors can generate so much thrust that the body wouldnt even be needed. You would have to try very very hard and add a ton of weight to make a battery powered plane that couldn't fly. And when I say fly I mean "dragged along by a horizontal helicopter blade".

One very cool aspect of this video is helicopter footage in the lower left corner shows realtime street addresses including building numbers. I've never seen that before.

Adrenalin junkies only need apply... Helicopters might be okay in still air - but wouldn't be much of an improvement insofar as risk is concerned if there was any kind of wind blowing...

Brutal. We've got one in Crescent city that's similar, but with more exposed rocks surrounding it. Now they use helicopters here.

But... they mostly do that with helicopters.

When they use boats they drop a line and winch the crew up/down because the oil rigs are generally way too tall to go from deck to deck.

Also, I'm not entirely sure this technology is safer in rough seas than a traditional hull, especially when you factor in the added risk of mechanical failure.

you've all hunted polar bears from helicopters?

I've said it before, I'm always amazed how drones have put epic film shots in the hands of anyone. Wasn't too long ago you'd be looking at tens of thousands of dollars of helicopter film crew to make that video he did on a trip to the beach.

Helicopter footage from the same night

First night structure fires from police helicopter

Yikes.
Another 1000+ acre deadly fire now between Ukiah and Willits, on top of the 15 just south of there. 101 closed.
Our local fire, Blue Lake, only got to 30 acres yesterday before containment thanks to tanker planes and helicopters.

Helicopter view of Rincon Ridge Park in Santa Rosa

Same neighborhood on goggle maps https://www.google.com/maps/@38.4892051,-122.6905577,696a,35y,180h/data=!3m1!1e3

If you can go to all electric motors, redundant ones at that, you can cut out a ton of the spendy maintenance that forces helicopters to charge thousands per hour of operation. And fuel savings are just icing on the cake.

Thanks for those insights---so, is NOTAR a bit less efficient in transferring power (ran out of horsepower to correct the yaw because of that?)

Or do you think it was just the gust was so large (the turbulence at a crest could have been ferocious) that it wouldn't have matter what model helicopter or whether it had NOTAR or a regular tail rotor--it simply would have been overmastered?

It has a fan driven by the main gearbox. It's pretty rare for those to fail, but does spin like it lost control of yaw though. My first thought was since it's landing so close to the edge of that cliff, if the wind is moving from the right to left, there is going to be a big updraft coming over the cliff.

Watching it again, it looks like the pilot is having to fight some wind and seems to be having trouble keeping it down. Between 40-45 seconds, it looks like the wind changes as the helicopter appears to lift up and weather-vane into the wind just before losing control.

I found this video which is in German. If the Google auto-translate isn't too off, it says the cause is still unknown, but whoever they're interviewing at the end speculates that the helicopter was too heavy for the altitude it was operating at.