[Paal Gulli]

"...the pilot becoming disoriented in foggy conditions. Probably the same scenario played out with this crash."

That and the fact that the pilot couldn't risk saying "No!" to his passenger.

This alleges to be the first photo released of the crash site:

You can't make out much detail but to my eye it looks to be a small, fairly contained crash site on the side of a pretty steep mountain slope. My gut hunch is he was flying fat, dumb and happy at cruise speed and ran smack into cumulo-granite.

I knew one of the usual suspects would post this, so I figure I'd beat 'em to it:

[xp38]

The odd thing is there were 3 choppers and only the one with the butcher crashed. The other two completed the journey without incident. Things that make one go hmmm.