This really struck a chord with me. The aircraft has still not been found, but I think we can all resonate with this.
This from another source..............
In the interest of education, and in the hope that by doing so, perhaps a similar such tragedy may be avoided in the future, I am taking the liberty of re-posting two messages regarding this accident from the Cessna Pilots Association forums.
May they rest in peace.
John
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Friends: This accident troubles me because I was flying in the same general area on the same day, the Sunday after Thanksgiving (December 1st).
The pilot departed Baker City, Oregon (BKE) for Butte, Montana (BTM) in a 1983 Beech Bonanza. Aboard were his son, daughter, and their significant others. With five people, baggage, and fuel, the Bonanza would have been close to maximum gross weight.
Given the weather that day, the flight would almost certainly have been on an IFR flight plan of only about 1.5 hours duration or less because of strong tailwinds aloft. But it would also have taken the aircraft across some of the most remote mountain wilderness country in the lower 48 states. The River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho was named after the Salmon River, which Lewis & Clark called the "River of No Return" because it was so rugged. Those of you who have had the pleasure of floating the Salmon River will know what i mean.
The MEAs in the area are between 12,000 and 13,000 ft. That day, a major Pacific storm system had moved into eastern Oregon and central Idaho from the west, accompanied by the usual AIRMETs for icing, mountain obscuration, turbulence, and low-level wind shear. Winds aloft were forecast to be 50-60 kt at en route altitudes.
The same morning, I planned to return to California from Boise, Idaho where I had spent Thanksgiving with my mother, brother, and his family. The leading (southern) edge of the storm system had already reached Boise and light rain was falling. However, the weather along my route of flight was forecast to improve dramatically about 100 miles south of Boise. Northern Nevada and the High Sierra were forecast to be clear or scattered clouds.
Nonetheless, I was concerned enough about the weather in the departure area that my wife and I decided she would fly home with our two children via the airlines. When the kids are aboard, she has little tolerance for turbulence or icing, having experienced plenty of both over the years. So I launched for California in the T210 by myself and they boarded US Airways.
The weather en route was slightly better than forecast, although the winds aloft were strong and there was continuous light, occasional moderate turbulence at all altitudes. I managed to stay out of the clouds by finding a clear layer and going VFR On Top at 10,500 and eventually 12,500 ft. Salt Lake Center was happy to give me vectors for shortcuts along the airways southwest towards Reno and home in California.
Not far north, however, the weather was much worse. The accident pilot would have been flying through the heart of the storm system. Although the news reports mention that the pilot reported engine trouble, I have to think he would also have been experiencing icing and turbulence. He's reported to have asked ATC for vectors to Yellow Pine, which would have been about halfway through the flight. The nearest airstrip would have been Johnson Creek, a backcountry strip with no instrument approaches and very likely obscured by clouds and precipitation that day. Searchers still have not found the aircraft or passengers despite looking for more than a week.
This incident made me reconsider my decision to spend $1,200 to send my family home via the airlines rather than fly them back to California myself. On one hand, my flight back wasn't particularly challenging, certainly nothing like what the accident pilot would have experienced from the weather alone. And I was flying over relatively benign terrain compared to his journey. In contrast to the Salmon River country where he apparently went down, the High Desert of southwestern Idaho, southeastern Oregon, and northern Nevada is mainly sagebrush plains and dry lake beds that afford plenty of off-airport safe landing sites. While the region is remote and unpopulated, aircraft forced to land there would be far easier to locate.
From what I saw of the weather that day, I would not have attempted to fly the accident airplane's route whether my family was aboard or not. Of course, if the Bonanza was equipped with TKS or another form of Known Ice protection, then perhaps the pilot discounted the icing element of the weather. And he didn't have the option of sending his family home via the airlines, since unlike Boise, Baker City, Oregon doesn't have airline service.
Hopefully they'll find the accident airplane soon and my some miracle the pilot and passengers will have survived. But every day makes that less likely given the winter temperatures and deteriorating weather conditions in the area.
Whenever I read this kind of accident report, I try and put myself in the pilot's place. On this occasion, I could do that more easily because I read the same weather reports he did and had to make a similar go/no-go decision not far south on the same day. As John & Martha King and many others have pointed out, flight safety has a lot more to do with good judgment, decision making, and risk management than stick-and-rudder skills. Those decisions are sometimes pretty nuanced, but given what I saw on the weather reports that day, I would not have flown the route taken by the accident airplane. We each have our personal weather limitations, and the conditions that day would have exceeded mine.