Originally Posted by
Pittsextra
"He told me he had a commercial licence and i had no reason to disbelieve him given the other work he was lnown to be doing...obviously as PIC it would then be his duty to ensure the safe conduct of the flight and i gave him no pressure to do otherwise.."
That would be a good basis for defence, maybe even "he showed me a commercial license that was in his name and valid, with a suitable medical, I suspect it was lost in the crash" ... part of the trouble with this occupation is that a lot of the records are paper, and must be carried on the flight .. resulting in loss when everything goes wrong.