Usually the FO gets the empty legs so may have played into the crash.
"Usually"?! Really?! Why would that be? Hire the wrong type of guys?
My philosophy is that the less experience a colleague has the more sectors should he/she be PF on, as long as there are no special conditions calling for anything else. For example bad weather combined with first time landing at an airport, company procedures requiring Cpt to perform the landing or if someone feels that "this one I'd prefer to be PNF on to get a chance to observe it" for whatever reason they may feel that that is a good idea to do.
There is, as far as I understand, and despite some comments here, no doubt that it was Universal Jet Aviation's G-IV sn 1005. Apparently a source withing the company made this statement last night:
"Universal Jet Aviation confirms an aviation accident involving one of our Gulfstream IV aircrafts at Le Castellet, France, and we currently have no further details concerning the circumstances of this incident,"
As to what caused the accident I'll let the authorities do their job....
CP