I heard from reputable informed sources that he made 2 errors both
potentially fatal, but when combined, very bad.
1 - Just got ahead of himself on the pre-flight, and took off with
empty tanks, fuel exhaustion at 400 feet at take-off
2 - tried a 180 to get back to the runway instead of landing on the
country road (a road thats been landed on before, by larger aircraft )
just ahead of him, and got too slow.