I can't honestly say I read every word, but this particular flight appears to have been 100% in compliance with all regulatory requirements, and in many cases exceeded those requirements by quite a bit, including the presence of a safety management program, a pilot with IFR and IFR instructor qualifications and required Part 135 training all in order, an aircraft with an operating 4 axis autopilot, etc., etc.
Refer to:
https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/Documen...Report-Rel.pdf
And also:
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/Doc...G-abstract.pdf
Leaving aside the fact that good enough is never good enough for the NTSB, it was good enough by current US regulations, indeed better than good enough.
There are at least a dozen shoulda/woulda/coulda's that might have avoided this event. All of them associated with pilot judgement and not regulatory deficiencies. Don't go/slow down/turn back/air file IFR (illegally but live to tell the tale)/etc. and all already discussed in this topic, and the most egregious of which appears to be the failure to slow down. But at the end of the day, the one that sticks out like a sore thumb to me is why, in lowering visibility, with such a wonderfully equipped aircraft, was the autopilot not engaged in some reasonable mode as soon as visibility became a concern, before it became zero? As a VFR only helicopter pilot who has never flown a helicopter with an autopilot (but has used autopilots in other contexts), am I missing something? Overreliance on automation is always a favorite topic. Do we observe an under-reliance in this particular case?