Two men in a Bonanza left the Aspen airport and didn’t make it over the Continental Divide. That is not unusual.
I learned to fly in Colorado with mountain pilot instructors. Drilled into all their students are some hard lessons about the winds aloft, mountain waves, and density altitude. There are passes you cross eastbound and passes you cross westbound depending on the winds aloft.
Aspen is especially tricky. Those two souls should have talked to the locals and added 20-30 minutes to their flight time by taking a safer route. What you don’t do at Aspen is take off in the middle of a summer day and immediately head eastward unless you have something with a 4,000+ feet per minute climb.
Winds aloft producing mountain waves can fool you. One time I was eastbound over Corona Pass in a C-180, 70 mph indicated airspeed, idle power, 40° flaps, and climbing 3,000’ per minute. The wave spit me out at around 18,000’. Then we dropped at 2,500’ per minute but were over much lower terrain.
Maybe it is wrong to make judgments until the facts are in but in this case I will speculate the key ingredient in this crash was pilot arrogance.
One addition. I've never had a problem walking into a FBO office and asking for advice no matter where in the country I might be.
1969 I was at Northway, AK in a C-170 that I was to deliver to Anchorage. After talking to the locals, made that very expensive call to the customer and advised him to come get his C-170. Two days later in the right seat enroute to Anchorage I was so happy I made that decision.
