Tragic for all involved and condolences to all.
A few issues to comment on here. The previous operator used partenavias and 402's for the island hopping, and the new operator needs to reinvent the wheel and use "barely" singles.
The media has also issued a statement that the crash was caused by possible fuel contamination. With respect to the 1300hr deceased pilot, I speculate that the accident was caused when he decided to turn a fully laydened sh#tbox back at low level. How many times do flying instructors and operators for that matter need to drum into students heads that turning back will kill you. In fact a particular 208 operator in QLD tells his boys that a caravan can turn back "feathered" from 500 ft. Thats fine on an empty a/c, but they seldom are. This false sense of security is a bad thing to install in junior pilots minds. Trying to bring the bird back is a financial issue, its the low level spin recovery that kills the boys.
The better outcome here would have been that the GA pilot lost his job (which is what happens these days), and the insurance company is b#tching about a wet Cherokee 6 or one that ground looped on the remaining runway, and every one walked away. But sadly the newspapers didn't read that way.
If anything comes of this, lets consider the turn back issue, and maybe operators should consider suitable aircraft types for certain routes based on safety not the $$$
Be safe.
