regardless of the weight & pax issues, how did it manage to go down in that particular spot, evidently nowhere close to the final approach path to any of the runways? Only thing I can think of is like a steep turn in the pattern trying to line up with one of them which obviously can lead to problems especially heavy, slow and low.
Here is what yahoo said: “Snow was falling gently Monday as investigators gathered before dawn at the scene of the crash in Holy Cross Cemetery, 500 feet short of Bert Mooney Airport. Seven investigators wearing National Transportation Safety Board jackets were walking around the area, pausing in places, in the 28-degree weather.”
So they were close. He was slow and stalled it within 500 feet of the airport. I would call that somewhat close and probably on final. Just because the a/c is not lined up with the runway doesn’t mean he was heading a different direction. Look at the Buffalo accident. They ended up facing the opposite direction.
Well it’s tough to get accurate information on these incidents…most reports I’ve seen say it hit the Holy Cross cemetary which is due east of the airport, about as far from the extended line of any runway there as it’s possible to get. But one report I saw said it was trying to land on RY3 - there ain’t one.
They obviously meant 33. This is a typical media mistake. You can see that the cemetery is west of and adjacent to the airport and just feet from runway 33. Does anynone know what the met conditions were at the time of crash, other than light snow?
Wazzu90…I fail to see the humor here with your “octomom” comment…cute, but very inappropriate. Very surprising coming from a pilot.
The trip he planned for (Oroville cali, I assume from KOVE to Bozeman, I assume to KBZN) is just about 600 miles as the crow flies.
How much fuel would he need?
I will address this one. Personally dark humor doesn’t bother me or any of my friends in the profession. I can understand that it may bother you, but basically it could have been any one of us getting burned up and it could happen at any time for any insignificant reason. So I guess most of us just deal with that reality with a little dark humor. On the other hand some people have there head up and locked.- not you though.
Not trying to argue the point with you Mel, but are you seriously trying to say you’ve never seen an overloaded GA aircraft?
Over the years I’ve witnessed some disgorging enough passengers that I was reminded of the clown cars at the circus. 
We could be witnessing a situation where the owner/pilot has an aircraft with a reputation of being able to fly away regardless of what you put in it, akin to a Caravan. “If you can close the door, it will fly!” So the PIC or owner starts calculating in his head that four 50 pound pre-teens equal one “normal” 200 pound adult passenger and loads the aircraft accordingly. Plus, who’s to say that this was the first time they had made this trip? It’s March, ski season is almost over and this could have been the last trip of many. (No irony intended.)
I guess I should watch my own words before I criticize the media…I managed to write east when I meant west. Just call me Corrigan.
I will try to s.w.a.g. this one, but with no time in the PC-12 don’t count this as accurate. The plane in question had a PT6A-67B. I can guess it burned 300-350 pounds per hour in cruise speed of 270-280 KTAS would make it about a 2.2 flight and add taxi of .3-.5 in there so you are looking at 2.5-2.7 for the entire start-up to crash plus .75 reserve so you need 3.5 hours of fuel at 325 lbs per hour about 1000 lbs or 150 gallons.
Hope this helps
Can we call you “Geisterfahrer” for short Herr Schneider? 
At least he wasn’t in the air when he said east and meant west
Heck yes, compared to what some of my pax call me, it’s a compliment. 8)
From Yahoo
"The turboprop plane left Oroville, Calif., headed for Bozeman, Mont., but changed course to Butte, where it crashed on final approach Sunday. The pilot gave no indication to air traffic controllers that the aircraft was experiencing difficulty when the pilot asked to divert to an airport in Butte, Rosenker said in an e-mail earlier in the day.
Rosenker said there was "no indication of any trouble when the diversion was requested to ATC "
This sounds like BS to me. What did the guy say when ATC asked him; why are you diverting? Something was wrong: Icing, low fuel? He had to tell them a reason other than the kids have to pee.
My son flies a PC-12. I do get the dark humor thing. I apologize for having an opinion as a parent
Ok, apology accepted. Just try not to do it again.
So looking at path before the accident I’ve got something to throw out there. I’m an instrument rated pilot, but haven’t flown in while and when I did it was all small stuff, so I"m looking for input.
The last reported position decending out of 10,800 at 2:30 MDT the weather reports at that time a brief period of clear sky then worsening overcast ceiling after that. the clear sky report is probably an AWOS error and not unusual. that being said it seems to me that the most appropriate approach would be VOR-GPS-B from the Coppertown VOR 10mi to the NW of the field then circling for RY33. He reported having the airfield right before the accident, this might indicate that he was going to start circling and disengage autopilot. Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft go side to side and nose dive. Could the change in CG coupled with dissengaging of the autopilot (which previously been compensating for the CG) cause a stall or eradic over compensation by the pilot? If so, that would explain why he was in the cemetery on the west side of the field.
Again this is 100% speculation, but any thoughts?
Plausible as they say on myth busters. Critical factors: Pilot experience in IMC, recency and currency. Weather deterioration ie: icing & low vis, low fuel (reason for diversion?) change in cg(fuel burn).
So there are a lot of factors as usual in crashes, but for him to get it slow and have the autopilot on and it may have trimmed out all the way and he then kicked off the autopilot finding a difficult situation could be plausible.
ATC isn’t required to ask, and having to pee is not an impossible reason, I have known it to happen many times. Do we know if he was filed IFR?
From what little I know, it sure does look like a stall/spin accident, possibly aggravated by CG issues. I can envision one scenario that might explain it…if he was attempting a visual approach but didn’t see the field until it was really too late to execute it the right way and decided to crank it over in a steep turn to downwind for 33. If there was some scud he could easily have run into IMC just at the time of the turn and just lost awareness, failing to stick with visual or instruments and getting very little useful information from either.
Just a theory.