Any thoughts on if no people were on the grass where he wanted to go would it have been a better outcome or was it going to hit pretty hard anyway.

My $0.02 from a working full time helicopter pilot with time in the B206. It appears to be a Main Rotor drive shaft failure. The pilots description of the sound and the look and sound of the video all lead me to this conclusion. The rotor rpm slowing and engine increasing is the main indicator. If it was SWP (Vortex ring state) the RPM would decrease as the pilot adds collective due to the increase in drag associated with that much pitch on the blades. The sudden left yaw and immediate drop indicates there is no longer power being applied to the main rotor and the tail rotors lack of slowing down. In the 206 the Main and Tail rotors are driven by separate drive shafts and therefore the tail rotor would still be powered by the engine if the main fails. There are 2 main types of drive shafts that can be installed in the 206. The original "Dog bone" style and a K-flex style. The original does have some AD's associated with it and has been known to fail in the past. Not saying that is what happen here as I don't know what kind was installed but... If the pilot was truly trying to make a emergency landing and his report to the NTSB is accurate, the drive shaft was probably starting to shear when he heard the original noise. He stated in the NTSB report he started to make an auto which would have decreased the torque on the drive shaft. As he approached the area he noticed the people and tried to slow his descent and added pedal as he increased the collective which would have increased the torque on the M/R drive shaft. That final increase in torque is what sheared the shaft completely, which is what we see in the video. The aircraft is under power approaching the beach. He starts to slow the descent and make a turn which is when it breaks free and leads to the fast descent to the water. It's unfortunate that someone died however I believe that hitting the water actually helped in this situation. Hitting the hard ground could have lead to a lot more problems like a ruptured fuel tank. This is only my opinion and I am of course not an investigator so we shall see what the final report says but that's my 2 cents worth.

More details:

http://www.staradvertiser.com/breaking-news/cause-of-death-released-for-boy-in-helicopter-crash/