Not beyond belief at all - in fact all too believable (and all too common).
Look at the lamentable list of failings:
1. No serviceable nav kit.
2. Not IMC rated yet took-off into IMC!
3. Didn't check the weather before setting off from Exeter.
4. Planned to land in IMC at Blackpool, after sunset (although it's not officially night until sunset + 30 minutes).
5. Didn't carry enough fuel to get to an alternate airfield.
6. Either didn't check or didn't understand the Blackpool ATIS.
7. Apparently got no advice, or got bad advice, from someone who had nearly 1800 hours on a (lapsed) BCPL.
I know that we should not expect too much from low hours pilots and relatively inexperienced BCPL/CPL holders but this is truly dreadful. Anyone with a degree of common sense and half decent training should have been able to work out that Blackpool was unfit.
It also raises questions about the FTO that let him have the aeroplane. Whilst the arrangement was a "private" one, and responsibility for adherence to the rules and regulations rests with the aircraft commander, you do have to ask what advice was given to them by the FTO/acting CFI? You have a moral, if not legal, responsibility to attempt to persuade them not to go. They could, of course, have refused to hire the aeroplane out to them. Poor supervision, I'm afraid.
Last edited by moggiee; 13th December 2007 at 23:38.