Thanks. Your explanation was straight forward. One of the 'buzzwords' with the NTSB is "operational control". The mystery of this accident is why the pilot initiated a deviation from the original VFR flight plan, a climb to get on top, that would, de facto, generate a lot of undesireable scruitiny in and of itself, even if the manuever had been 'sucessfull'. In hill country, if one can, it's best to forsee and avoid situations that leave 'emergency actions' as the best and only remaining option.