Originally Posted by
Capt Kremin
Go and have a look Google Earth. They made a right hand 180 degree turn after take-off and eventually flew a distance enough for two circuits. There was no turn however towards the south-westerly runway to get quickly back to that runway, nor any turn to line up on the runway they departed from. It doesn't make any sense unless there was a control issue.
Perhaps, but I wonder if, having turned base they started running out of power and realised they were not going to get back to the field. They've ended up at at position that is roughly an extension of the base leg. And looking at the 3d form of google maps, the space behind the building that they hit could well have looked appealing...from a distance anyway.
There was a comment that I read yesterday to the effect that they knocked back an ATC offer of 24 to use the longer runway. That also implies to me that, at that point, they had neither control nor power issues.
Hopefully they'll be able to tell us.