Originally Posted by
Luc Lion
The colour blindness issue is a red herring.
Historically, barring some flying privileges to colour blind people had surfaced for fear that such people would be unable to distinguish the different flare signals sent by a tower in the event of a radio-communication failure or unable to distinguish the left and right position lights of a conflicting traffic. Most colour blind people can perfectly distinguish the 2 position lights but fail the Ishihara test.
The real issues that have a causal relationship with this accident are:
- was the pilot trained and current for flying in IMC at night ?
- why wasn't a commercial pilot at the controls of that plane, if it is confirmed that the actual conditions of the flight match private carriage operation as defined under FAR 91.501(b)(4).
He was colourblind and had a specific licence restriction to Day Time Flying ONLY. He had NEVER been trained to fly out night due to this restriction. This could not be over ridden on his 61.75 certificate. So regardless of any of the other issues around the flight, the fact that it was flown at night made it illegal.......