Sure, the defective aircraft didn't cause the crash on this occasion.
There are a bunch of other factors at play though:
- The pilot wwas trained and tested by a person/organisation that was not on the RA-Aus list of approved flight training facilities.
- Despite this, RA-Aus issued a flight crew certificate.
- The pilot elected to land (probably) downwind, despite other aircraft landing in the opposite direction. A downwind landing would certainly help to explain the long touchdown, the apparent poor braking performance, and the poor climb performance on go-around. The pilot's explanation was that he landed in the same direction on another day.
- The pilot failed to see a 20m high ferris wheel on his overfly of the strip, on the first approach with touch and go, and on his final approach and go-around. The ferris wheel was 161m from the end of the runway and 34m from the centreline, and was brightly painted. Of course we don't know about his eyesight standard as this is not examined for the issue of a certificate.
- The pilot either didn't check or didn't comprehend the airfield information for Old Bar, as he didn't acknowledge the known obstacles, and didn't obtain permission for landing.
- The pilot's account to the ATSB varied significantly from his account to the police, and to the witness observations.
- The pilot either didn't check or didn't comprehend the weather forecast as the wind at Taree was similar to the reported wind at Old Bar.
It certainly looks like the holes really lined up here. The very first, and very big hole was the failure of the training and certification system of RA-Aus. Who knows what he was taught prior to the issue of the certificate.
It was really just monumentally lucky that he hit an unoccupied part of the wheel, that the wheel didn't tip over, that there was no fire, and that he didn't hit anyone or anything else - particularly given the fact that he never made it to more than about 15m above the crowd.