Originally Posted by
Easy Street
I don't understand where you're trying to go with that. Are you saying that Hill couldn't possibly be grossly negligent, because he was the one most likely to die if he crashed? That would fall down because negligent acts don't have to be intended: the legal definition of negligence is essentially 'failure to take proper care'. Aviation history is littered with examples of pilots who have died due to their own grossly negligent flying, so the self-preservation argument is of no value.
No, we've already discussed the gross negligence part. Perhaps I should have highlighted my relevant sentence on "gross-negligence manslaughter". As a layman, I find it hard to contemplate that a manslaughter judgement could be applied to someone when there is no evidence that he was not aiming for an open space and that, in any case, he was the most likely victim of his own error of judgement. The latter could not possibly have applied in the so-called Misra case cited by
Raikum above, which - IMHO - is a red herring.