Passenger perspective
Every passenger places their trust in the pilots and the the machinery as a necessary part of flying. However, many passengers are frequent flyers or have pilot experience. Rational concerns and doubts should not be disregarded by pilots or passengers. I frequently fly as a passenger in small aircraft (several times a week). I avoid flying in marginal conditions and tend to check the weather particularly when flying with family. Probably I am overly cautious and do not represent the majority of the flying public.
As an example, I chose to take a short 20 min flight under marginal conditions because I had doctor's appointment. As it turned out, the flight took 1hr and 20mins because there was severe weather over all available airports and I missed my appointment anyway. There were no alternates within range and the only other option was to ditch. In hindsight I would not have taken the flight. The only choice was to land in dangerous conditions without much fuel left. I wanted to make my doctor's appointment and the pilots wanted to make their schedule. In hindsight I think that we would have all waited until the thunderstorm activity had subsided. It was an unnecessary risk.
I definitely would have not allowed my family to have flown on that flight. Luck was on our side that day, but the risk could have been avoided by ignoring the urges to fly. We must recognize that the urges to get to were you are going sometimes cloud judgment. I suspect that it may be possible to improve regulations to avoid some of those risks and make the decision not to fly more objective. Inevitably the flight crew has the greatest responsibility to avoid unnecessary risks.
It seems that the choice to fly Sala was questionable at the very best. No doubt there will be many factors taken into consideration in the investigation.