Elevator Driver, I'm well aware of how the auto feather system works. I think you misinterpreted what I wrote: re-read my last sentence in the text you quoted, focusing on "if the engine failed after an uncorrected..." (meaning you did nothing). The last sentence is a different scenario to the rest of the quoted text.
As for numbers, do 400 and 200 ft/lb Tq switches sound familiar to you? You were close with 88%- it's actually about 90% based off power lever microswitch position.
Hoggs, how does one get the gear up without removing a hand from either the control column or the power levers?
The slide back in the B200 can be very rapid. I'm not talking about setting the power, rolling down the runway without your hands on the levers and it slowly comes back, I'm talking the moment you take your hand off it slides back fairly quickly- enough to feel like an engine failure.
Sounds like you are not familiar with the mechanisms on the King Air.
Let me explain further.
There's a spring in the system that pulls the power levers back to idle. If the friction is not done up firm enough, after you set take off power if you remove your hands from the levers (to raise the gear), you might find one or both levers slide back pretty promptly.
There is a seperate friction adjustment for each power lever, hence why one or both might slide depending on friction adjustment.
Typically for any maintenance work on the power/prop/condition levers or FCU/governors, the friction is wound off, and engineers may not firm them up again when they are finished. It can catch you out if you haven't checked before going flying that the friction is set appropriately.
If the pilot is smart enough to realise it's just a slide of the power lever then problem solved, push it back up and tighten the friction (very interesting to watch someone trying to fly the plane with one hand, and then get the power lever back up and tighten the friction with the other).
But if not, and you rush into thinking you have an engine failure (because humans don't make mistakes right?), then you could well mishandle the situation.
As I said, this is by no means to be taken as me saying this is a factor in this accident. It's a gotcha that may not be known by some King Air pilots and if having some additional knowledge saves them from a some unnecessary stress one takeoff (on a dark and stormy night no doubt too!) then good.