Very sad news. Condolances to Steve's family they must be devastated. Also to JJ's family you have all my sympathy's. She could talk a leg off an old chair if she wanted to but she had finally worked herself into a position to step up into an airline job. Such a shame she will never get there.
Having worked with Gam's a few years back I soon realised Steve was a freak of an engineer. An intimidating man with an amazing amount of knowledge. His work ethic was second to none and that's why he was aboard that Shrike to shep and not one of the other 20 guys he could have sent. He was a great bloke to some but could be very unfair to others. After all at the end of the day he was a business man and there was money to make.
Like most of us know GA is tough game. Many times I pondered how CASA would treat the GAM organisation as "better the devil I know". They would rather have 3 dozens shrikes out there than a mix of clapped out chieftans, aztecs, and c310's. These aircraft fly over loaded, the pilots are overworked (fms), underpaid and those Shrikes by some miracle have the cleanist mr's in the counrty. It will be interesting to see how much spine CASA an show with this unfortunate accident. I suggest they start with pilot duty hours.
RIP JJ
RIP Steve