Aspen airport jet crash

A private jet crashed at Aspen airport shortly after noon today. I have a greater than usual interest in this airport, because it's relatively close, has a challenging instrument approach, lots of famous people passing through, and we flew ourselves there one summer, to meet our friends Kay and Tom for lunch.

The News says it was N115WF, a Bombardier Challenger 600, flying up from Tucson, and before that, from Toluca, Mexico. It exploded into flames sometime shortly after crossing the runway threshold, and came to reset upside down in flames. There were just three people aboard, all pilots, one of whom was killed immediately, and the other two were seriously injured. From the flight track on FlightAware.com, it appears that they made one large circle around the airport, getting ready for (or not being able to intercept?) the Localizer approach to Runway 15, missed the first approach (they reported a 33 knot tailwind), and returned to attempt a second approach, which ended in the crash on the runway.

There are all kinds of possibilities. Did they land long because of the tailwind, and lose control trying to get stopped? Did they get off the runway, dig into the deep snow, and flip? Did they encounter wind shear, and land too hard? Did they over-control the aircraft on landing, and get into pilot-induced oscillations? Did they attempt a go-around? The NTSB is investigating.

An interesting twist to this story, is that some famous personalities were at the airport, and posting on Twitter about the crash.

Update 1/22/2014: The TV news and the Aspen Journalism website showed recently released video coverage from fixed position infrared airport cameras, that seem to show the jet touching down amid a shower of sparks, then rapidly pitching up (a bounce? ), and leaping many (30?) feet back up into the air, at far too low an airspeed, then rapidly pitching down, and hitting very hard at a steep nose down angle, and bursting into flames, as the wing tank ruptures and the fuel catches fire. Damn. I wonder what happened, just before, or during, that first touchdown?