Originally Posted by
lederhosen
But is that not what abchelico would be offering? it seems that Dassault owned the machine through Dolijet and quite probably had it managed and chartered out through abc with an AOC.
Typical owner deal is that the aircraft may be used by the AOC holder when the owner does not need it. When the owner needs it is then still operated by the AOC holder but as a private flight (
ORO.AOC.125 explained here
https://xcaviation.wordpress.com/201...on-et-vol-ifr/ if you read French ) and so part CAT regs are not mandatory anymore, the ops manual can be as simple as "just use part NCC/NCO regs" . In that case the pilots were too old anyway to fly under part CAT operation
We will find out soon enough what licence the other pilot had and what the currency and experience of both occupants was. But the Leicester City owner's very public crash and the one taking off in the Bahamas at night are but two examples where having two pilots and an AOC did not make a difference.
Isn't the accident you are referring to due to a mechanical failure of the tail rotor?(*) Anyway there is no way to be 100% sure that there won't be any accident ever, I'm just convinced that the discipline of a part CAT operation does increase safety a lot compared to part NCC/NCO operation. The fact that all the paperwork of the flight must be stored and available for inspection and is actually inspected, the mandatory line checks, the currency of the crew , the event reporting system etc.
The 74 years old pilot was certainly not as current as a part CAT pilot.
(*)EDIT Yes it was according to AAIB preliminary report. At 0 speed and low height, no crew can do much when such a thing happens . Standard procedure does not work at low height/speed, and the failure has no reason to happen at a reasonable speed.