ShropshirePilot, I disagree that more hours always = better skills. In theory yes. Not always in practice. I know 200-300hr ppl's who I feel safer with in the air than 5k+hr CPL's. I might fly 5x less than a similarly employed pilot, yet do more instrument flying and more take-offs and approaches, purely due to the nature of the job. Some pilots claim 10k hrs but they spend 5-8hrs in the cruise each flight just monitoring, which clocks up lots of hours but limited actually handling experience. In 5 hours I can carry out numerous joins to up to 10+ ILS and 10 Radar approaches. These can be totally IMC and down to minima. Risk is increased with a lack of experience, yes, but don't get hung up about hours being the be all and end all. The pilot of the accident aircraft had a fair few hours, unfortunately just not of the type of hours required for the flight he elected to take that night.