Watch what happens with this caribou when the locks on the control columns are not disengaged. Pretty much the same thing as with the crash at the airport. In fact it’s pretty much a carbon copy crash. Take off, roll to the right, inverted and then the inevitable.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YydkHy2P0dU

I love the fact that the readership of this website is so varied that we have expert opinion on tap.

Asking legitimate questions isn’t “politicising”. It’s holding government to account. The government is involved. The matter is political by definition.

However in the real world, people get tired or complacent, and procedures might not get followed to the letter. Most aircraft are forgiving of such things. A few are notoriously nasty, including this type.

As to the data recorders, while they are required if this aircraft type was operating on an EU registration, more probably than not US regulations don’t require it for the type of operations this aircraft was engaged in.