I've said my piece here, and shall not do so again. I'm sorry to see the cognoscenti here so keen to blame an inexperienced and arguably impressionable pilot, with considerable favour at stake, and motivated by the advice and clear intent of someone he regarded as 'superior', for his own demise, when that demise, in the circumstances, was so far outside his own making.
Rubbish, utter rubbish. This tragic story can be summed up pretty easily really, both from common knowledge at Blackpool, the AAIB Report & from reading this thread:
1> CFI shouldn't have asked him / them to go, due to weather and knowledge of licence currency issues.
2> Mr Walker should not have agreed to go, CFI shouldn't have encouraged the flight to go ahead.
3> Aircraft should have been refuelled for return leg, wasn't due to reasons unknown, possibly financial.
4> Aircraft crashed due to weather conditions / lack of fuel / lack of adequate navigation equipment, poor decision making on behalf of the P1 / P2.
5> CFI that encouraged the flight, over the passed decade or so p*ssed off a lot of people / organisations resident at Blackpool Airport, p*ssed off a lot of other people / organisations elsewhere around the country, p*ssed off the CAA. The reasons why these people / organisations are p*ssed off, is most probably justified.
6> Due to nature of the accident and the circumstances in which the flight went ahead, perfect opportunity to nail the CFI to the wall to rid the system of them forever. The AAIB have already determined the causes of the accident, they didn't leave anything aviation related out, they did their job.
To me, it is obvious, and others posting on this thread have already started see this with a similar perspective to me, something doesn't add up, to me it seems that these certain p*ssed off individuals with a score to settle may have stirred the pot to aggrivate an already extremely raw wound and are avidly awaiting the outcome. Witch hunt indeed.
Edit: G-Spot hit the nail on the head.