New to the forum in terms of posting, but felt compelled to say something, so here goes.
I flew a Seneca in UK and Europe as a businessman with a UK PPL IR. I am same age roughly as this pilot and like everyone very saddened at the brutal finality of this accident. The images of this family, and the family in the PA34 that crashed in Kentucky earlier this year (little girl survived in 3rd row), stick with me as being so familiar to my own experiences.
I very nearly killed myself once when I made an awful decision, in an N registered aircraft. The plane was a seaplane equipped with very basic (VFR) instruments, but I had my trusty G-reg Seneca fully equipped for IFR and I was in current instrument practice. I chose to fly the seaplane in bad conditions relying (rationalizing) that my instrument rating allowed me to do this safely.
The story makes me shiver still and fortunately I turned the plane around and landed VFR safely, but with very little fuel left. This is a specific example of a terrible decision (to go in the first place) that did not end in tragedy, but could (and would) have done. I don't know how this helps other than to confirm the old adage about aviation being very unforgiving of poor decision making.
Actually I think the problem I encountered was blurring the line between a well planned IFR flight (typical Seneca trip) and a VFR jolly (seaplane trip). My totally flawed seaplane plan (on the bad wx trip) was to descend to near sea level and land VFR. This would never have worked, the sea would have been too rough etc etc. Melding these 2 familiar scenarios (IFR cruise and VFR approach) into one impossible trip was nearly fatal.