That do you Centaurus, from the ATSB report?
Thanks, Zanzibar. I understood the only "payload" was an electrical component (maybe an alternator/generator/ starter motor) needed for another grounded aircraft. The passenger was the owner of the operation and most likely being an aviation man, sitting in the RH seat alongside of the pilot. The flight had been delayed because of the unavailability of an LAME to fly in the aircraft. Hence the operator, himself an LAME, rostered himself. While at least moderate turbulence was expected, occasional sharp or even violent gusts can be unnerving to even an experienced pilot. I recall one of the greatest frights of my flying career was experiencing violent turbulence in a Cessna 172 as a front passed over Melbourne while I was flying from Point Cook to Melbourne.
I was surprised that in the case of the 2007 Aero Commander accident, ATSB studiously avoided mentioning the possibility that, at the onset of severe turbulence over the hills in partial IMC, the passenger may have grabbed the controls in fright counteracting the pilot's input. On the other hand the passenger may have thought he could help the pilot with the controlling of the aircraft in severe turbulence? If indeed that was the case, things would literally have gone downhill from there.
Perhaps in their deliberations, investigators should make mention in some detail what actions by the pilot could be discounted. By not doing so, it leaves the situation wide open to healthy speculation just as I am doing right now. After all, ATSB alluded to possible over-controlling of the elevators.
But not by whom