CASA had a problem with these two Angel Flight fatal accidents. It may well be that both were caused by pilots pushing into IMC contrary to their licensing. So, CASA rules may have been broken, can’t have that, politicians may blame CASA for not policing rules. Solution? More rules. Reason? To destroy Angel Flight. Problem solved.
lets be clear. The first accident near Horsham was not VFR to IMC. It occurred before last light but the ATSB assumes that due to low cloud and other factors that the pilot becaume disoriented in night VMC. The ATSB said “VFR flight into dark night conditions”. Which in itself is an emotive headline befitting of a Mills & Boon paperback.
There are 2 glaring weaknesses in the ATSB Horsham report. 1. The report does not disclose who the pilot rang when he landed at Bendigo. He made 3 phone calls, one of which was to met briefing. A phone all that would have been recorded. But the ATSB failed to disclose what weather advice the pilot recieved before deciding to reload his passengers into the aeroplane and continue. The second is that one of the passengers - known to be highly agitated - was found not wearing a seat belt and out of her seat. This raises the spectre of an agitated passenger interfering with the control. But this was not considered at all by the ATSB.
The second Mt Gambier incident does not yet have a final report - about 18 months after the accident. Prima facie it looks like the pilot flew into a fog layer and became disoriented. But, the pilot landed in similar (presumably worse) fog 2 hours prior. So - legal or not - he had familiarity with what he was getting into and how high it was likely to extend, which appears to be only a couple of hundred feet thick. There is a strong chance he was able to see blue sky vertically above him and ground directly below him. The aircraft probably only needed to maintain a climb for about 30 seconds to climb through the fog layer, but it did not. We don’t yet know if the aircraft had an autopilot. But a simple wing leveler and an aeroplane producing full power and any semblance of airspeed control would have seen the aircraft climb through the fog. I’m not condoning the pilot taking off into fog and I have personally cancelled and Angel Flight about 3 hours before ETD because of fog. But blaming this accident on VFR to IMC without a report from the ATSB (no matter how poor it will be) is facile.