I decided to learn to fly when I took early retirement. This is my first post and with less than 200 hrs I am certainly not doing so from a wealth of flying experience! I read the threads on PPruNe and the AAIB reports in an attempt to understand the causes of accidents and learn from the "mistakes" of others. Whatever people say, flying a light aircraft is a risky business and I want to avoid doing anything that tilts the odds against me.
Straight after my PPL I did IMC and Night ratings. Not because I had any intention of planning a flight in IMC but I wanted to give myself the best chance of surviving if I was somehow caught out by the weather. My instructor would never let us fly in real IMC unless the cloud base was 2,000 above any local high ground. In an SEP he wanted to give us the best chance of finding a suitable field and executing a good forced landing. He even mentioned that he had to consider what would happen if he had a medical issue - I would be on my own. There were quite a few days when I looked at the weather and really wanted to go up, but he said no. No chance we would have flown in the conditions on the day of this accident. Even if the student in this case already had good IFR skills you still have the SEP risk
I found a 2008 photo of G-WAVS' panel on line. It was the older King setup but it did have a KLN89 GPS (plus usual radio nav kit) and the avionics might well have been updated over the past 9 yrs. I would be surprised if they did not also have at least one phone or ipad with Skydemon so they must have known where they were. The highly experienced instructor would know about the high ground so it is very hard to believe this was a simple CFIT. Even without the high ground why would he be 1,100ft in IMC so far from the airport he would stay higher and use the ILS. The other Aeros Warrior did not seem to have any icing problems?
Eye witness reports can of course be unreliable but this one suggests they might have had an engine problem prior to the impact?
Lizzie Ransted, who was walking on Bredon Hill at the time of the crash, told the BBC that as she was walking down the hill, she "heard a loud engine sound".
"It was sort of cutting out and then we heard a very loud crash bang. We couldn't see anything.... visibility was so bad," she said.
"But it was the noise. We knew something was not right."
The fact that ATC reported an exact time that radio contact was lost suggests they might have been in active ongoing communication with G-WAVS? Indicating a developing problem?
The AAIB are currently investigating 14 fatal accidents, including this one, the earliest of which happened on 18th Sep 2016. We won't get their perspective on this accident for at least a year.
It's all so very very sad.