On January 10, 2008, an American registered Eurocopter AS350 B3, N530NA, experienced a power loss while conducting long line training, using a 100' line with an empty remote hook. The helicopter was hovering with the line near the top of the tree when it descended about ten feet. An attempt was made to pull power back to arrest the decent, the helicopter did not respond and continued to descend slowly. The pilot immediately entered auto-rotation with the helicopter about 200' above ground level (AGL). Upon impact, the aircraft settled about 15 degrees to the right, and the main rotor blades contacted some very small trees. The engine continued running and the rotor RPM was low. The two occupants were not injured. Company maintenance and Turbomeca personnel subsequently extracted stored data from the Engine Electronic Computer Unit (EECU) and Homogenized Metering Unit (HMU) Computer. The components will be removed for further evaluation as a fault code was indicated.

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