By "EU-OPS" you probably mean Commission Regulation (EC) 859/2008? In which case this is a community law that supersedes equivalent national regulations in all EU Member States, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway. That's the big difference between JAR-OPS and EU-OPS.

For what it's worth, recent news says a part of the wing(?) was recovered 1 or 2km from the crash site... one of the articles say the piece found is 1x3 meters which is a piece of substantial size and would suggest an inflight break-up of some of the structures, if the facts are correct. Really disturbing, I though this plane was more or less "unbreakable"... Admittedly the radar picture in previous post (or checking historic pictures on meteox.com) looks rather difficult. But does this accident have any resemblance to the June accident in Florida where a PC12 went down under unclear circumstances but also seems to have suffered from an inflight break-up?

We'll probably have to wait for long for the accident report, but let's hope we can learn something from this one where a highly experienced pilot in a highly sophisticated and sturdy plane goes down :(

Accident d'avion: une aile de l'appareil suisse retrouve dans un champ - Suisse - Actualits - Arcinfo - site de L'Express, L'Impartial et de Canal Alpha

Alsace | Crash aérien dans le Doubs : un bout d’aile retrouvé à 1*km - L'Alsace

And according to this article, in addition to the wing fragment a few km away from the crash site, a winglet would have been found 10 km away from the crash site.

Solemont | Crash du Lomont : l’avion aurait décroché à 8000 m et plongé à plus de 500 km/h - Le Pays

From that article it would seem that they were flying at about FL250 above the weather when the aircraft's right wing broke up. Very baffling to envisage how that could happen to a PC12.

inside TS or not?
 

Article suggests the aircraft stalled at around 26,000 ft. and then fell off the sky at a very high speed, thus the structural failure. A large piece of the R wing broke-off (about 10 ft long) and was recovered approximately six miles from main crash site.

What is surprising is why the loss of control occurred: was it pilot incapacitation, possibly caused by loss of pressurization? Or, pilot not recognizing the onset of stall due to distraction? Was the AP engaged, or thought to be engaged?

Or, was it instead flying into extreme clear air turbulence, if indeed not inside a TS? What were the CB tops that day? It will be interesting to read the findings of the French BEA.

Recently, two other PC-12 suffered fatal crashes while flying in & out of severe TS in Florida and in India. Possibly the pilots did not interpret the WX-RDR correctly and did not recognized the severe cells and associated [extreme] turbulence. Any other aircraft type would have suffered the same outcome.

Personally, I prefer flying with a stormscope in addition toa WX-RDR. It gives a much better idea ofwhere to cells are.

Why use a Stormscope

StormScope.net

Does anybody know for sure whether Air Sarina had an AOC?

I assumed that they did hold an AOC, as they seemed to operate air-taxi out of Saanen. I presumed that they had dispensation for single-engine ops from SwissControl, but as another forumite has pointed out, this was not the case.

So under what regulations were they operating?

Rumours are floating around that the pilot was unwilling to divert to Berne because he knew he was operating illegally. Also that he was inside a fairly severe cell, not in VMC as implied in the newspaper article.

AOC
 

http://www.air-sarina.ch/ng/FlightOps/AOC.pdf

Delivered for VFR flights

Three years on, no report from BEA or BAZL. Why not?

Never used a Stormscope but it seems like a great piece of kit on a single
engine light aircraft, especially when radar cannot be fitted (although I think it can be on a PC12 in a wing pod)


Curious as to why you think its better than radar though, if it was why do you not see it fitted in any larger aircraft ?

The report:

https://www.bea.aero/docspa/2012/hb-...z120824.en.pdf

I knew this pilot. He once poured scorn on me for turning back in my Super Cub from a cloudy valley through the Jura. He said that in an aircraft like mine I should have pressed on and tried to pick my way through.

"What a pillock," I thought, and vowed never to fly with him.