Originally Posted by
Dick Smith
Vagg. All very well however how about coming up with a suggestion on why the pilot was refused clearance at 6500’.
An educated guess would be that the airspace was being used at the time. The bush fires we were working on that day in the Doreigo area provided horrible visibility and the weather did not help at all. it was hard enough to nav low level in a helicopter...
We had the LAT coming in a lot and it probably didn’t help with all the other AC that would have been in C class airspace; Airmed, bird dogs, LAT, Linescan AC.
its a tragic result but something that I really don’t think is anything of a ATC cause.
the pilot in command can always turn back.