A witness reported that the engine sounded “sick” before the crashed.
There are helicopters all around here. I always figured they came from Redstone Arsenal. The narrow valley in front of my house is used for training sometimes. Once I watched a Kiawah(?) with a radar dome slowly playing hid-and-seek down the valley. It was followed about 5 minutes later by 2 Cobras flying balls to the wall and treetop level. Pretty cool.
What you describe sounds to be a 'Delta' model, the OH-58D.
The UH-60 has been in service more than 40 years, which speaks to it being a mature, well-sorted platform with a lot of flight hours in combat. Which translates into a YUGE amount of worst-case-scenario R&D for the manufacturer. I don't recall any major problems except back in the 1980s when the Army's Black Hawks were found to be sensitive to interference from high-power radio signals:
... An Army Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, while flying past a radio broadcast tower in West Germany in 1987, experienced an uncommanded stabilator movement. Spurious warning light indications and false cockpit warnings were also reported. Subsequent investigation and testing showed that the stabilator system was affected by EM1 from high intensity radiated fields (HIRF). The Blackhawk has a conventional mechanically linked flight control system with hydraulic assist. The stabilator system, however, uses transmitted digital signals (fly-by-wire) to automatically adjust its position relative to control and flight parameters. These digital signals are highly susceptible to HIRF. When the Blackhawk was initially designed, the Army did not routinely fly near large RF emitters. The Navy version of the Blackhawk, the SB-60 Seahawk, however, has not experienced similar EM1 problems because it is hardened against the severe EME aboard modern ships. Despite the Army identifying several hundred worldwide emitters that could cause problems and instructing its pilots to observe proper clearance distances, between 1981 and 1987 five Blackhawk helicopters crashed and killed or injured all on board. In each crash, the helicopter flew too near radio transmitters. The long-term solution was to increase shielding of sensitive electronics and provide as a backup some automatic control resets....[emphasis added]When the Army added similar shielding, the problem went away. Which probably had as much to do with Army pilots avoiding anything resembling a radar dish or radio aerial on a ship as it did with the added shielding.
A dear friend who died recently had been an Army helicopter crewchief from before Inchon until after Vietnam. More than one time I heard him say, "When better helicopters are built, Sikorsky will build them."