I just joined this forum to add a little to this thread. I'm DOM for a high end corporate flight department, an aircraft owner and pilot. Our "little toys" corporate hangar is next door to Cloud 9's corporate hangar at F45 in Jupiter, FL. I knew Geoff as a hangar-neighbor, and we would talk when ever we saw each other.
I understand it's easy to complain about the waining "skills" in today's batch of pilots. But I can tell you first hand that Geoff was an absolute professional, with top tier hands on flying skills. I'm finding it exceedingly difficult to speculate on pilot error being the cause. These 2 pilots flew regularly in local conditions, day+night, understood them exceptionally well, and displayed professionalism always. Not the type to be distracted into CFIT shortly after a night takeoff.
We've all heard common airport chat such as: "that idiot is going to kill himself or someone else". Geoff and Dave were NOT those people and never had such things said about them. We never expected this. Geoff managed his business and his flying with the utmost professionalism.
I need to go out to the hangar this morning, and I dread it, this really hurts. I was out there the other day, the sadness is palpable, the missing pilots weigh heavily on our souls. Not one of us has ever had a bad thing to say about them.