What a sad, sad turn of events.
For me,this just reinforces the same old message. Plan the flight, tell someone where you are going and when you are coming back and fly the plan. Even if its just a jolly, it only takes a couple of secs on the phone.
Incidentally, the search area would have been somewhere in the vicinty of 125600nm2. All for the sake of a phone call or a note.
I must not be a topic in a crash comic!