Originally Posted by
eharding
I might have misread the timbre of the postings above, but personally picking out an AAIB report and crowing over the findings doesn't strike me as a productive, or tasteful, exercise.
Yes you have missed the point.
The AAIB report catalogues a series of errors which were completely avoidable if the pilot in question had been better trained, better supervised by the FTO which hired out the aeroplane or if he had just applied a little common sense.
For kiwi chick - there is plenty to be learned if your mind is open, not least of all for companies which hire out aeroplanes to inexperienced pilots. The FTO at which I work, for example, retains the right to refuse to let someone use one of our aeroplanes if it's inappropriate to fly.
For The Gorilla - let's look at those decisions then.
1. The decision by an inexperienced, non-IMC rated pilot to take-off from BPL in conditions that were below VFR minima shows a failure to understand (or adhere to) the limits for VFR flight.
2. The decision by the FTO hiring out the aeroplane to the deceased pilot shows a lack of appreciation by that FTO of the potential risks to which the pilot was exposing itself. It also shows a lack of regard for their duty of care towards someone using one of their aeroplanes - a point which I feel that the AAIB report glosses over.
3. The decision to set off from Exeter without properly checking the weather demonstrates either a lack of appreciation of the potential weather risks, a lack of regard for those risks, a rather poor standard of training or a plain, old fashioned lack of airmanship (or combination of several of the above).
4. The decision to leave Exeter for an airport with marginal weather without enough fuel to get to a suitable alternate airfield shows the same failings mentioned in point 3. In fact "marginal weather" is a charitable assessment - it was actually much worse than that.
5. The failure to check weather en-route quite possibly shows a poor standard of training - I am frequently surprised by the number of CPL holders who have never been made aware of the existence of the "VOLMET" system and the same applies to an even larger percentage of PPL holders. If the weather had been checked, then there would have been an opportunity to divert en-route to somewhere like Welshpool or Liverpool.
6. Failure to appreciate that it would have been better to conduct a Precautionary Forced Landing in a field in VMC to the south than a crash in IMC near home indicates a possible failure in initial training, recurrent training or airmanship.
These comments are not intended to be "holier than thou" but to point out some pretty basic failings in training, supervision and decision making. Poor decision making in the air would not have been an issue if the correct decision had been made on the ground - don't take off.