It was said that in his final flight, he for whatever reason lost control of the plane and despite his frantic efforts was unable to stabilize the aircraft and crashed. Always imagined he dies listening to the screams of his wife and her sister. Question to pilots: If during that crisis had he engaged the automatic pilot, would the aircraft had stabilized thus allowing him to regain his bearings and control?
Possibly, but he needed to recognize the problem sooner. My understanding was he exceeded the maximum airspeed for the air-frame on his decent and at that point it probably didn’t matter what he did. He was either going to hit the water hard, or breakup in mid-air trying to recover and unrecoverable situation.
After the crash in 1999, El Rushbo played a short video called “You have 178 seconds left to live” about a disoriented pilot’s final moments.
It’s on youtube and it’s chilling.