Disingtegration

What many might find surprising is that most helicopter accidents happen for the most moronic of reasons.  Which is why perhaps so many helicopter pilots have a feeling of invulnerability:  they cannot imagine themselves making such ridiculously sophomoric mistakes.  


As the current story goes this pilot was unable to release the cable dangling underneath his helicopter (after using it to place the steel structure that was to be used for a christmas tree decoration), and so was descending towards a low hover so someone on the ground could manually unhook it from the belly. The other end of the cable, though, was still anchored to the top of the steel metal structure, so as he descended the cable was dangling precariously close next to him, as of course the other end was stuck on his cargo hook.  


You could almost see it coming, as the ground guy pulls on the cable to free it from the helicopter, which then eliminated whatever slack the pilot was counting on for clearance and snapped the cable right into the rotor arc.  And then two seconds later the helicopter ceased to exist.