You’re right. If you put anything I listed to “off” to kill the engine and put it back to “on”, windmilling would have restarted it.
But, as your sibling comment notes, turning those things to “off” when you can’t restart the engine is normal. So I still doubt the airplane would be conclusive (and really won’t be since he visited it after the crash).
And even if the fuel valve was off and even if you could prove that he turned it off in flight and never turned it on, that alone doesn’t prove it was intentional. People have turned off fuel valves by accident and failed to check them during the engine failure.
One thing that’s misleading about this whole comment section is the skill level assumed in your average Private Pilot. The “pilots are drilled from day one…” is a bit amusing to read as someone who did the drilling for a few years.
But the “seriously, no one wears chutes” are more accurate. That being said, I did just sell a parachute to a pilot who said he wanted it “just in case”, so who knows.
> If you put anything I listed to “off” to kill the engine and put it back to “on”, windmilling would have restarted it.
I cannot speak for the particular airframe / engine / propeller configuration here, but speaking from personal experience (supervised training) one can stop the engine from windmilling on a Cessna 150 Aerobat by pulling the mixture back an slowing down. Once it is stopped, you have to dive quite steeply to start it rotating again.
With regard to parachute-wearing, it is the usual practice for glider pilots, mainly because the desire to fly in rising air tends to lead to flying in close proximity to other gliders.
This is a somewhat ambiguous response, so, for the record, Let me say that this looks suspiciously like a staged crash - as did that Beech Bonanza ditching off Santa Cruz some months ago. Even if Any one thing might be explained, each story is just one such thing after another.
Good point on glider pilots, forgot about them. Friend of a friend used his after a midair. He said he had doubted he’d be able jump if he needed to. But when he saw that long wing folding up towards him, he was out before he knew it.
