invertron
NO. No-one is saying that. I am simply providing an answer to the question: What is the minimum weather for VFR flight (with or without pax, it makes no difference). Had they been 'grubbing around' in such weather, it would have been quite legal.
As Brian says, we have no idea what conditions they were actually faced with.
SH flying is quite hairy at times, and the decision to put all those high profile people in one Chinook was not the pilots'.
It was however, in my view, an act of Gross Negligence.