Originally Posted by
Icaruss
Of course another possibility is that a sudden electrical failure perhaps due to having all the lights, deicing equipment overloading an electrical system with an underlying fault and aged battery with underperforming alternator perhaps coupled to an unheralded engine failure happened without reasonable warning soon after a perfectly reasonable decision to descend to 2300 into clear air and a well executed glide to ditch was then performed in complete silence and darkness. No information that is currently available or likely to emerge or makes good reporting is around to support this, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t exactly what happened, pilot legality aside!
Of course this is all just thinking out loud, but my feeling, having assisted in this search, is that I doubt very much that they'll ever be found, or if they are, it'll be on the north coast of France in an extended period of time.
Engine failure notwithstanding, the above quote
could well be pretty much on the money.
If they'd had issues before departure,
was it a battery/electrical issue?
Did the extra electrical load at night create the problem, compounded by de-icing load once airborne? This would possibly leave a very dark cockpit,
if the correct actions weren't taken. The Channel Islands area was cloud covered that night as I looked up. It wasn't the sort of night I'd enjoy flying in myself and it was as cold a night as i've experienced in all the times i've worked down there.