From the Courier Mail:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/s...7-3102,00.html
Counsel assisting a Queensland coronial inquest into the crash, Ian Harvey, today shed light on a transcript from an inquest into the death of pilot Zachary Short, whose plane crashed into the sea during an ill-fated flight from Badu Island to Horn Island in the Torres Strait in January 2002.
The transcript revealed Mr Hotchin testified to the inquest in June 2004 - 11 months before his death - that he personally engaged in deadly flying practices.
Following a two-year-long investigation into the Lockhart River plane crash, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau found, among other contributing factors, that Mr Hotchin had a history of flying too fast and was flying the doomed plane at about 100km/h over the limit shortly before impact.
Giving evidence to the 2004 inquest, Mr Hotchin testified that he had, only the week before, aimed his plane through a cloud gap, known as "shooting for the hole", on approach to landing in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
However, amid the thunderstorm the cloud gap disappeared, and Mr Hotchin was then left flying blind.
"You look for a break in between the clouds, so you can see a very white light coming through the darkness of the clouds," Mr Hotchin said, according to the transcript.
"So you aim for the point ... and then all of a sudden you notice that you're enclosed by two cells on either side.
"But the only thing you can do, once you've made that decision, is keep going straight ahead because you know that at some stage beforehand you saw the light there."
So the obvious question is..................why was he still flying?
Di
