I know fixed wing commercial aviation life, and that you are trained to get out of inadvertent IMC; but how hard is it for an experienced single pilot helo to do a 180' turn in IMC? If this guy flew in the LA basin he must of had plenty of actual time, how could this do him in?[/QUOTE]
I'm by no means insinuating that any of this or what I wrote previously happened here, just to get that out there, but the transition from IMC to VMC low to the ground can get you pretty quick in a helicopter. Even an experienced IFR pilot can find himself/herself in a situation where they think they're wings level when, in fact, they're 60 degrees left wing down. Most here are well-versed in the various illusions that you can experience without adequate visual cueing, but from my experience it is even more pronounced in a helicopter (I'm now a 121 guy except for one weekend each month, if that counts for anything). A climbing, decelerating turn in the goo can do some pretty gnarly things to your sensory abilities. I've seen guys (me included) keep on rolling through a turn all the way towards 90 degrees still thinking that they've rolled out on course, as well as those (myself) flying along "straight and level" before the rotor RPM horn is screaming at them as they begin to effectively slide backwards out of the sky. It's amazing what the inner can convince the body of. That video was interesting, but the lack of ceilings and fog present makes it seem like much more of a benign situation than it most-likely was in real life. As you get forced lower and lower, things can start to degrade on all levels to include your instrument scan.
This is without a doubt a horrible and tragic event. Hopefully they can gather some information that sheds some light on the cause. At this point, anything is possible, but those conditions (based on my location in SoCal and weather reports to this point) were not something that I'd be comfortable flying in, especially in a single piloted aircraft with passengers on board.