Originally Posted by
rotorspeed
...Would anyone sensible assume that every one of Ireland’s no doubt hundreds of small islands is accurately recorded? Accurately enough to be confident bowling along at night in IMC conditions at 200ft for a planned 10 miles? Just nuts, as I know Crab and gulli agree..
Even with a perfect set of surveyed maps it's still nuts to go barrelling along at 1.5 nm/minute at night in the pitch dark at 200' when you can barely even make out the water below you, even in a capable SAR helicopter. Especially when your task at that point is just to top up on fuel. I don't see that route maps or aeronautical charts or NVG or EGPW navdata or toughbooks or anything else had anything to do with it. They are all just excuses after-the-fact. You play the cards you are dealt with. Despite all those things that went against them, for the life of me I find it difficult to believe that nobody "stepped back" and thought for a minute there must be a better way to do what they were doing.