1. The pilot had other pressures on him that day; one was a social commitment and one the fact that his wife was driving down to Ballina at the time to pick him up, I was told.
2. Would the permit to fly have been granted if it was known that there was a maintenance organisation at the Southport Flying Club that was quite capable of doing a 100 hourly on a Cessna 172?
3. Despite his reported difficulties in logging on to NAIPS, the Maclean's Ridge webcam
Australian Weathercam Network - Mcleans Ridges Webcam was working and had photos and archived photos available from early morning that day showing the cloud sitting on the ground before and at the time of the accident. The archives, like most of this site, don't work any more as the site(originally a storm chaser's site) has largely been abandoned but they were working on the afternoon of the accident when I checked. This camera site is the only one in Northern Rivers area that I know of at the time and is about 7km from the crash site. Whether the site was live and working prior to the flight and could have been accessed and used as part of the pilot's flight briefing, I don't know.
The Murwillumbah Aero Club cameras have been put online more recently but they weren't operational at the time.