IMHO having witnessed the last moments of this flight first hand(Skiing not controlling) and as a practising ATCO AND not knowing the background to the flight my first reaction was one of disbelief that anyone was there intentionally in those conditions; they were indeed extreme - vis var 25-100m, solid cloud with prolonged hail and snow showers passing through on a NE airstream. God only knows the events leading up to the tragic ending; over to AAIB. What I can say having some experience of the "industry" is it is not an experience that I would wish to repeat for a long time; hopefully never again!
My heart goes out to the pilots family and friends.
As soon as I heard the engine noise (which incidentally, sounded perfectly normal) my blood ran cold. Strangely I tried to think of ludicrously irrational reasons as to why the situation was all OK, yet knowing that the aircraft was probably doomed.
He passed overhead at what I estimate was well below 200' agl on roughly a southerly track(very briefly made out a shape through the clag!) heading to what I know was gently rising terrain above the Ski area. My location was about 100m E of the Cairngorm Ptarmigan restaurant which sits at an elev amsl of 1097m and I reckon the A/C passed just to the west of my position between the building and me.
Retrospectivly I reckon CFIT almost definitely. If he did see the terrain it would have been too late to reconfig. and lessen any impact. A substantial tailwind component probably compounded this situation(but I am no expert!).
I did listen for any impact after first sighting but given the following wind it wasn't surprising that I heard nothing!
It was only later that my worst fears were realised when speaking to Ski Patrol staff and they informed me that a Light A/C was indeed missing at which point I told them of my sighting.
I only hope that it was of some assistance in eventually locating the crash site.
RIP.