"could the King Air have had a flight data recorder?"
I don't think so, unless things have changed and I have been out of the scene for a long while. They are not required on aircraft under 12500lbs. Not a pretty picture in your second post, GZ, but you can bet he was really working on it. Unusual for those engines to go bang, but not impossible. For him to call it catastrophic, it must have been a noisy one as opposed to, say fuel contamination causing it to just go quietly. Regardless, the prop should have been able to feather, so the lack of climb must have been caused by something else. Witness's described the noise the right engine was making, so it was developing a fair bit of power. The investigation may be able to ascertain if it was at full power or not.
