I'm very familiar with John Wayne, flew out of there many times in the 80s. The only spot after take off to the west is a estuary with a lot of soft goo and unstable ground. I don't blame him for wanting to go around but I'm a bit baffled by gear down already.

Lost right engine on takeoff out of Broomfield, Colo with me and two others onboard, full fuel. Low powered trainer, maybe an areo commander or gruman. Gear up, throttle idle,feathered prop, mixture cut-off. Climbed to crosswind altitude, turned downwind , all left turns) final landed. No prob. Experience- background and training are important which most GA pilots don't have. (many years ago
Bob.

Even at RTOW, that aircraft should have been handle-able back to a landing following engine failure at 1500' AAL. More information, not additional opinions, are needed. Will the State investigator deliver that information? Is it even available?

It's not the state which investigates aircraft accidents in the sense of a "state" in the United States. Accidents are investigated by the National Transportation SAfety Board, which is a federal government entity (Of course that's also the "state" in a different sense of the word.) Information from the Accident investigation is in the public domain. Normally for a General Aviation accident with no fatalities, the NTSB published a summary of the findings on their website. The complete set of documents of the investigation would be available on specific request. It likely will be many months before any information beyond 'This type aircraft crashed in this location with this number of serious injuries and this number of fatalities" is released.

I wrote

Not 'state'.

Sorry if you didn't understand that. The NTSB is the US State (not in the US sense but the international one) investigator.

The time it takes for the minimal findings of a GA fatal investigation to be published is another matter, and is not the topic under discussion here.

Wrong answer! In a twin with propellers mounted on the wings. 1/2 ball towards the good engine is closer to zero side slip, with the failed engine fully feather. It is closer to full ball if windmilling. I make a point of demonstrating this to my ME students on the second flight by attaching a piece of yarn to the center of the windshield and setting one engine to zero thrust, then windmilling the engine. each time fiddling with the pedal to get the yarn aligned with the center post, then look at the ball.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news...cid=spartandhp

video here with more info on the rescue.