I’m based at a small GA airport in Colorado. During fire season the ramp can be pretty crowded with fire fighting helicopters. Last year several of the helos were grounded for a short time after a fatal accident in Canada. Guys on several of the crews were definitely shaken up over the incident. Am assuming they either knew and/or were friends of the pilot who died.
An Airwolf Tension-Torsion strap had failed resulting in a blade separation on a Bell 212. Bell 206’s were part of the resulting inspection campaign. A 206B inspection found a TT strap in the process of failing.
I’m just a fixed wing guy with not much knowledge about rotary wing stuff. Just that there are a lot of critical pieces of hardware in a helicopter that have to work 100%, 100% of the time. Very sad that a young family and the pilot were lost.