looks like a nice cross slope landing. I guess Bathurst would have been the nearest airport at around 20nm away.

Mental illness , hypoxia or panic attack.

Who flies charters in a Duchess??

Well, you're not going to send a chieftain for a charter for one person!

Sounds like he's just a few clowns short of a circus..

Hats off to the controller as well, definitely kept the cool.

Is is possible the elderly passenger wanted to commit suicide?

I recall a while back in WA an elderly gent hired a helicopter for for a joy flight then in cruise, unstrapped, open the door and jumped to his death.

Not to make light of someone's delicate mental state, but it's always a particularly horrible thing when someone involves someone else involuntarily in their bid to exit life... Not sure if that's the case here, just responding to the above hypothesis and the reference to the helicopter incident.

There have been those who wanted to take their own lives, but wanted it to look like an accident for life insurance reasons. Hard to prove suicide when every one has been killed in a plane crash, even if there is strong circumstantial evidence.

Have a look at the Basair site under 'aircraft'. They've got a C206 that looks remarkably like a Tobago and a motion simulator that seems to be installed in an old 206 fuselage. Maybe the pax thought he was having a go in the sim and freaked when he looked out the window? :E

And now back to the main story.........

Wonder if the pax was sitting up front next to the pilot? I can see CASA changing the regs, barring pax from sitting in control seats.

GO PRO footage of the incident just released by ATSB....

Funny, but that was the first thought that I had too! Many years ago Charlie Henderson (of Bullo River fame) had a drunk passenger grab him from behind during flight. Sara (Charlie's missus) grabbed him & sorted him out.

DF.

DF, that would be Irony

Preventing passengers from sitting up front would not work too well for some aircraft, seeing as they can be quite sensitive to weight distribution. Would surely be a few issues in having 2 pax in the back as opposed to one in the front the other up back

I think I would prefer him sitting next to me rather than grabbing me from behind!

Yes, Silk Air MI185 comes to mind. Although, if I remember correctly, the Indonesian NTSC investigating it did not come to any conclusion, despite the evidence and the final report from the US's NTSB.

Ken May, Navair.

.. and I can bring to mind one sim checkie in his 80s

Just read the Barry Poppins link, seems like he moved the mixture lever to one of the engines to cutoff. If he was trying to commit suicide you would think he would move both together. :confused: A Duchess with 2 POB should be able to maintain altitude on one engine.