On 22 May 2006 20:42:15 -0700, "cjcampbell"
wrote:

So I don't get it at all.

Nor is the location a clue. (That's GPS data from the fisherman who
recovered the body, right?)

If you were going straight back to Redlands, you would go that far
north, in order to pick up a vector that would get you past SNA
without havng to talk to the tower. And you'd stay over the island
(no doubt climibing all the way) as long as you could, just to
minimize the possibility of ditching at sea.

And perhaps all that is a clue. To end up in the sea just barely
offshore after staying over land well past the isthmus, almost to the
tip of the island, is strange indeed. It argues for something sudden
and utterly irreversable.

Bird strike?

(OTOH, I would not put too much reliance on any eye-witness's
impressions of pitch angle.)

Don