I got an email from a friend who was right below the crash. He said he heard a dull “whump” sound the the nose then pointed straight down and fell landing on its side. I think KOMO Air 4 was a Ranger but not sure. If the tail rotor failed the chopper would start spinning but it didn’t do that. It just nosed over and went straight down without spinning. That’s all I’ve been told so far. It does sound like the engine had a turbine stall. Guess we’ll have to wait for the NTSB investigation to find out more.
You’re right, we’ll have to wait for the NTSB findings but it seems that a tailrotor failure is still a possibility, thanks Janie!
A witness they interviewed said that he saw the helo take off from the pad, was OK for a few seconds then started to spin and come down. It came down spinning over the street a bit, but then seemed to recover and regain control. It hovered over the street only for a few more seconds and lost control again, slamming down on the red car.
turbine stall?
Not too likely, that whump might have been a blade striking something, a turbine stall would make it fall slow at first, you still have rotorary motion on the blades, you can autorotate in a controlled crash straight down, but if something hit something else, like the tail catching on a electric wire and then releasing, the tail would pop up and the nose would go downdowndown with no more vertical lift available!