Sir Niall! Well said.
I had had never heard of Wingly until this thread and was frankly amazed by it. Wild West indeed. As you say, the fine tooth comb rightly applied to any commercial operation for the safety of the public is totally circumvented by this lunacy.
A few few questions I haven’t seen answered are whether Sala was flown in the same aircraft to Nantes after signing on Saturday? If so did he have two pilots? DI and DH? If not how was DH going through security with them on Monday (if he did). Did he sensibly decline the mission only for DI to heroically ‘save the day’ by setting off on his own?
how old is DI? As a PPL of course it’s academic. But if a CPL the difference between 59 and 60 is crucial as he couldn’t operate commercially as a single pilot at 60.
I’d reckon that DI amassed the vast majority of whatever hours he had day VFR. He was totally out of his depth at night and in bad weather and icing conditions. His admitted ‘bit rusty’ comes nowhere near it!
More questions than answers. And those with the answers are keeping shtum. Probably with legal advice to.