Very sad news.
..."Must not let news stories like this put me off my PPL"...
Liam,
Don't be put off. One of the great things about aviation is that through the AAIB reports we all have a chance to learn by other people's mistakes. After all, there isn't time for us to make all the mistakes ourselves.
20/20 Hindsight is a wonderful thing. As aviators we need a bit of foresight too. I was planning a trip to Glasgow on Sunday from the deep south, returning Monday. I have a seriously capable, IFR, de-iced, twin engined aeroplane but I took the decision on Friday to cancel the trip given the forecast which had been talked about for almost a week on the BBC. I am not put off by bad weather, but I just thought that this was too much.
I don't know what equipment this particular aircraft had or what the pilot had planned to do or indeed why he was so keen to make the trip. Some of that will come out in the report.
Once you have your PPL, there is a whole lot more to learn that will help in the decision making process, but picking up ice, in lowering cloud over a mountain range is not somewhere any of us would want to be.
However, I always tell my friends that the most dangerous part of any flight is the drive to the airport. Don't be put off by this incident. GA is one of the safest activities around, its just that when it sadly goes wrong it becomes headline news. How many families have been affected by road accidents this wekend I wonder? So many its not newsworthy anymore.
Condolances to the family of this particular pilot, as it nearly could have been any of us.