This is why you rarely see them do that, instead they circle - which any small plane could do but the helicopter can hover if needed. It’s just the most dangerous part.
There's also a lot of other things that can impact the event - for example, the crash I mentioned involved bad weather, tired crew, and losing both engines at once due to icing. They autorotated and nobody died... but they fell into a forest, landed hard enough to destroy undercarriage, and the first officer survived by accident due to helping get passengers into position when a tree smashed his station.
EDIT: corrected captain to first officer, as visible in this photo: https://static.polityka.pl/_resource/res/path/bc/08/bc086fae... (it's Mi-8, so captain sits on the left, not on the right as is normal in western helicopters)