Also... 2 questions come to mind after seeing the latest pictures:
1. Why if they had the failure at only 50ft why are the gears retracted? I know, some people are going to tell me "Son, you always get the gears up as soon as bloody possible incase you have an engine failure so it'll perform better.." But this doesn't seem to have assisted at all!
2. I'm no expert, but if an engine had failed completely, wouldn't one of those propellers be looking a bit less bent? Looks like all 3 props on both engines are pretty badly bent, I was under the impression this signified a reasonable amount of power.
As The Green Goblin mentioned, one of these SHOULD be able to maintain or even climb with an engine out...hehehe... but surely with only 2 people onboard and what appears to be a decent amount of power still available to them, they should have been able to at least climb to 500ft and make a turn back to the field? Feels like there's a bit more to this than just an EFATO.
Also, I'm assuming the Journos were onto this pretty quickly which makes it really impressive how quickly they got themselves a can of black spray paint!! Or were they carrying some in the kit for just such a situation?
*EDIT*
Huh, interesting, just read the ATSB report, apparently the Pilot opted to Raise the gear after he felt a yaw to the left and power surges, so this could explain why he may have had extra power towards the end and why the gear was up.