Originally Posted by
Timmy Tomkins
Have there been previous prosecutions by the CAA or convictions for similar activity? There may have been but it took the poor Sala family to suffer this avoidable tragedy to raise the profile of this type of activity. I hope it has an impact on public awareness as well as the CAA's policy of dealing with dodgy customers. I am sure we have all known a few
Unfortunately it is very difficult area to investigate. All the parties involved will have an interest in staying silent, very little (nothing?) will be committed to paper, use of text or email is recognised as potentially incriminating, phone records may still reveal something, but use of "burner" phones is becoming quite common and payment may be hidden in all sorts of ways. The CAA may have strong suspicions that unlawful activity is going on, but mounting an investigation that might stand any realistic chance of gaining the evidence to justify a charge, let alone proceed to prosecution would be eye wateringly expensive.
Look at it from this perspective, if the aircraft had not crashed that night how would the CAA have been in a position to investigate the circumstances of the flight? What grounds were there to open an investigation, they would have needed a well founded complaint or have been otherwise presented with sufficient evidence to investigate whether or not an offence had occurred. It is deeply sad that in this it took the tragic deaths of two people before action could commence, but it's how the law works. Fishing around for evidence purely on the basis of suspicion is the stuff of a police state.
YS