Guys, we are in 2018, not in 1970......
We have all possible information's about the weather we face now, trough many different apps or anything else. You don't take-off at night for 100 NM ride without checking the weather....and what do you find? low IFR at your point of departure.
What do you expect to do in this case?
It doesn't matter what procedures your company has, you do not play Russian roulette there.
So, VFR flight was not possible from the start, since IFR is apparently complicated there, well, you don't go. And if you go and get caught which is what happened just after take-off, you request a clearance to go back to Porto, it is a full IFR airport.
In our life as a pilot, we will face difficult situations and decisions making can be complicated by many factors, but in no way, you try something like that.
I still don't understand how and why they did it because there is no way it was possible.
...and the NVG in bad weather is a killer....This is not what it is made for....
How many people have been killed with such a poor decision making, it is crazy.
We are responsible for the crew who is on board, we don't have the right to play and try, hoping it will work.