Originally Posted by
etudiant
If the reports of deteriorating weather are correct, it may be that the aircraft was caught in a gust as it was clearing the top of the ridge.
The canyon wall is extremely steep and the edge quite abrupt.
The crash site is a fair distance beyond the rim of the canyon, and it's not an area where turbulence and downdrafts tend to be a problem. Talking to people who were flying that day the weather moved in exceptionally fast, routes went from moderately open to completely closed in a couple of minutes. What's particularly hard to take is that Paul wasn't the type to take stupid risks, just a couple of days earlier he was one of the first to be cancelling flights for bad weather.