Hipper, I doubt that the operation had insurance in place for commercial flights, bearing in mind the big picture.
jumpseater,
The report stated the manoeuvre was to maintain VFR not regain it. That indicates he was still flying with references to good drowns contact or a defined horizon.If he then flew into cloud or a shower that reduces visibility, disorientation can occur fast enough to lose control regardless of any CO problem that may have degraded the pilots faculties.
I presume you mean “ground contact” rather than the unfortunate typo of “drowns contact”, but a properly instrument trained and experienced pilot with sufficient recency would be far less likely to allow himself to become disoriented just by flying into reduced visibility. Or a large percentage of scheduled airline flights would be flown with a similar risk!