Very sad outcome indeed. I am a little familiar with this as I travelled to look and potentially buy this plane 3 months ago. It looked well built and the owner also offered check-out training and he had flown it two hours for an annual inspection the week prior to my inspection, engine was silky smooth. I did not see any obvious aircraft issue.
I did not know the pilot that purchased it, but I was told by the previous owner a month earlier that the new buyer would collect the aircraft on 16 Oct - which was the accident date, so it sounds like he turned up and this was the first flight. Media reports that the co-pilot had come with him from WA, so I ASSUME it was not the previous owner providing check-out training. The previous owner had suggested to me that we use a different strip that was dirt (tail dragger), whereas the accident occurred at the home airport. Makes me think that the new buyer declined check out training and wanted to head off as he literally was flying this across Australia - huge undertaking for an unfamiliar plane.
Looking at the damage (left wing contact followed by engine) with all parts in a small area, it certainly appears to be stall spin and if the ground and wind speed data is correct, you might suspect that a stall-spin accident to be the most likely cause. Shame there are no witness reports. I am sure that the previous owner would have been present, but he seemed like a pretty conservative person and I doubt would have spoken to the media. Does not sound like the ATSB will investigate it being an ultralight, so we may never know the true cause.
