The “freight” was fire retardant. They were flying at 140 mph just above “stall speed” at 150 ft above the terrain. Nearly as close to the edge as it gets.
There’s a certain irony of a plane carrying fire retardant becoming flaming wreckage. (I get it it had likely been dropped already, but still ...)
Notably the wing(s) is still attached to the fuselage in the wreckage photo. I am guessing the ground was quite flat, smooth/soft and the pilots had the opportunity to make this a somewhat ‘controlled,’ wings-level crash.
Can’t re-use the equipment, but they did walk away. Good landing mates!
I went back and read the ABC article on-line. (I know that violates a FR principle to actually READ an article ...).
there’s speculation they may have clipped a ridgeline and lost power (tree-strike?).
also the plane still had half its load of fire retardant.
If you look at this photo ( https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/bd266b64029e733a4a9b8386e2b1dadd?impolicy=wcms_crop_resize&cropH=856&cropW=1284&xPos=0&yPos=82&width=862&height=575 )
... the front third of the fuselage is intact and upright. The pilots might have walked out the front left door ;-)
Still amazing.