I usually post over on the missing persons thread. I'm a former airline captain and worked as an accident investigator for almost 15 years. (Trish has a copy of my creds but we never finished getting me verified). I flew a Lear 25D back in the day. The 55 is bigger overall but would have the same navigational capabilities. Not having a way to look up a mexican registry airplane I don't know what year it is but it would be capable for flight in all weather (with the exclusion of severe icing which NO one pokes their nose into).
In the US medivac flights have to operate under 14 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 135 which have petty stringest requirements for pilot certificate and maintenance. In Mexico, not so much, and their pilots don't tend to hae as much expeirience flying in winter time type weather as we do up here. If you want to look up the basic FAA report on it - it won't show up til Monday, but go to
www.faa.gov around noon on Monday and down at the bottom of the page and click on "accident and incident data" then under "reports" click on "Preliminary data" and when that opens up the first light blue colored link with the accident data tables is there.
And for the person who talked about the "black box" surviving. General Aviation jets aren't installed with them, and aren't required to have them in the US or anywhere else. Some of the newer technology aircraft have data systems that can record some elements of engine and operating data but there is no "black box" (which by the way is orange, and they are VERY heavy - I had to babysit one on a flight to the NTSB Lab on a commercial airline flight once long ago).
Grace
