Look gentleman, the posts stating a wing can stall from VNE to zero indicated (actually calibrated) airspeed is absolutely true. It may be hard to demonstrate at VNE because the aircraft may sustain structural problems 1st however we do demonstrate a stall called an accelerated stall (google it) which is well above level flight un accelerated stall speed. On the flip side just because you have zero indicated (actually calibrated) airspeed does not automatically mean that you are stalled. An example of that would be a zero G pushover from a nose up position to nose down wings level. It is all about angle of attack and managing it. I think everybody here has that knowledge but it takes time to realize it.
Another point I am making is that the stall of an airfoil doesn't always happen at a certain speed but can happen at virtually any speed. But always at or beyond the stall angle of attack.
I want to add that you can also stall at any
attitude. Straight up, down, inverted, it does not matter however obviously some are easier than others. It is all about pointing the nose (in the pitch axis) in the direction the plane is moving. This reduces the angle of attack. Sometimes bringing the nose down will stall the airplane. Check this out; For example the top of the loop where you are past vertical. Most beginners will there pull a bit hard to force the nose down towards the horizon. In the position most aircraft is probably slow and pulling back on the stick to bring the nose down will sometimes exceed the critical angle of attack. How to avoid it? Relax a bit of back pressure usually works So there was an example of exceeding the critical angle of attack while trying to move the nose down a bit to fast. One more example; You are in a fully developed spin, you reduce power, you center the ball as you roll level however if you rush the recovery by bringing the nose up too fast it can easily stall again, during high indicated airspeed and the nose well down. This is an accelerated stall.
Of course almost all of this is irrelevant here being the R22 series is probably a POS (never flown one so I don't really know) and we were not there in the cockpit at the time of the accident so we don't absolutely know what happened there either. However we do know that up until the point where he died he tried everything his experience enabled him to try.
The 2 worst things for a pilot is walking out to the aircraft not knowing it will be your last flight and walking out to the aircraft knowing it will be your last flight.
Think on it.