Report of plane missing near Renmark SA

[Mach E Avelli]

I am temporarily coming out of self-imposed exile to comment on this tragedy.

Too many here appear to have made up their minds that, because it happened on a training flight, pilot mishandling was the probable cause. Those of the unwashed public with sufficient interest would be gaining a similar impression.

The three pilots who died were not gung-ho amateurs playing at 'Top Gun'. They were mature, experienced and careful.

This training mission - in which the CASA Inspector was observing the Chief Pilot checking a very experienced inductee - would have been meticulously planned and briefed. Yes, there would have been some pressure on both operating pilots with CASA in attendance, but both would have experienced this before on several if not many occasions. Each of the three would have known the sequence of exercises, how and when emergencies would be simulated, and the speeds/pitch attitudes to be flown.

The Cessna Conquest 441 has benign handling characteristics and, as has been shown in an earlier post, good engine-out performance for its vintage and certification category.
BUT.....it is a 35 year old aeroplane not built to airliner standards of structural integrity or systems redundancy.

If pilot incapacitation can be ruled out (which we don't know yet) and the wreckage is too badly damaged to determine a mechanical cause, I do hope that the ATSB does not take the soft option of 'pilot error' ; rather returns an unresolved cause. With no CVR or FDR data, blaming the pilot(s) would be mere speculation.