Colyn,

 

Interesting.

 

I'm not sure how accurate the flight aware numbers are but I did some checking.  I'm sure the altitude numbers are pressure altitude from the transponder, airspeeds are ground speeds.  I pulled up Google Earth and entered some of the lat lon numbers from your post to get a feel for where he was.  I converted the decimal lat lon to degrees and minutes.

 

I plotted:

 

The Dalton airport

The 12:24 fix at 16,400 MSL (15,700 AGL)

The 12:26 fix at 11,700 MSL (11,000 AGL)

The 12:28 fix at 7,700 MSL (7,000 AGL)

The last fix, presumably the crash site

 

The last fix is close to a divided highway with a grass median.

 

The 15,700 AGL entry is only 5 1/2 miles from the airport.  The 7,000 AGL entry is 8 miles from the airport.

 

See attached Google Earth image.

 

Mike Easley

Colorado Springs