It is worth noting that friends/family/colleagues of those either dead or being alleged to have been negligent read these pages so restraint, no matter how strong ones feelings, is prudent.
As a current military jet pilot, aircraft owner and someone who'll be doing the FIC this summer (military flying unfortunately comes to an end at some stage) it might be worth thinking about and comparing the differences between a civilian flying club and what could be considered the same, a military flying club (i.e. a squadron.)
On a squadron, every pilot independent of rank or experience has a series of flying checks mandated. Each year the military pilot does an IR, a QFI check and a host of other minor checks. For the more junior pilots, the frequency of the flying checks is 6 monthly even though they have passed out of their training unit (or, let's say, passed their PPL and are considered 'low time.')
But the question on this thread is of governance on the day. On a military squadron, each pilot is either a self authoriser or requires authorisation (equivalent of the new PPL or student for simplicities sake.)
But the responsibility for aircraft flying on the squadron is very much a team effort. The duty pilot (duty FI?) is responsible for checking weather and critically ensuring that last minute sanity checks are completed such that each member of a formation is current, qualified and fit to fly the sortie planned. Indeed, that the sortie itself is sensible.
If a flying club is simply a place where all responsibility is devolved to the low time PPL whose decision making can not be as sagely as a high time FI; whose safety net doesn't exist because there's no structure to take responsibility for checking that those about to fly aircraft are fit to do so then there is truly a deep rooted flaw in the supervision and duty of care afforded to new pilots.
Any pilot turning up to fly an aircraft, military or civilian, needs to be checked and quizzed about what they are about to do and most importantly the contingencies should things not go to plan. Pressure to deliver or get to a specific location in unsuitable conditions is one thing; not having had anyone take a view on that in the first place to help remove that pressure is not something the military flying world accepts.
My reciprocal question would be along the lines of club rules. If, let's say, a PPL with 100hrs TT books an aircraft to fly on the saturday, is it standard practice for that pilot to find the duty FI, talk through what they're going to do, talk NOTAMs, weather, diversion etc.
Or do people turn up, take the keys and go flying with no third party comment?