Originally Posted by
FH1100 Pilot
No matter what ends up being the actual cause of the accident, the very legitimate question will have to be asked: Why did she accept that flight when *two* other agencies turned it down? Being that close to sunrise, did she optimistically believe that things would get better as it got lighter out? Of course we have no way of knowing what she was thinking. But let us admit that launching at that time was ill-advised. Upon hearing that two other operators had already turned the flight down, most of us old-timers would've said, "Good enough for me!" and then taken off our white knight armor and gone back to sleep.
But we have to understand that women pilots are subject to some amount of increased pressure than their male counterparts. Aviation is a man-dominated industry to be sure and so some women are just going to feel - rightly or wrongly - as though they're infringing in our territory. Could this lead to a bit of, "I'll show 'em! I'll show 'em that I'm just as good as they are." Who knows. But I wouldn't be surprised if she felt some self-imposed pressure to launch, perhaps ignoring that tiny voice in her head saying not to.
We can dissect accidents six ways from Sunday. We can figure out all of the forensic details...the how and the when. But we can never know a pilot's thought process. When I think about some of the really close-calls I've had in my career, if any one of them had turned into a fatal, the investigators would've been scratching their heads wondering what the hell I was thinking and why I put myself,my passengers and the ship in that position? It is only through God's good fortune that they never had to ask.
We wouldn't be worth a crap as pilots if we didn't think that we could safely complete each flight, right? But how we convince ourselves of that is often complicated and murky and not easily understood.
She may not have known anyone turned the flight down. The requester is supposed to inform them if they've been turned down, many times when they are shopping they leave that bit out.