I think that lots of us ( and the AAIB) are being very unfair on young Andrew Walker. Try to cast your mind back to the stage of training he was at, he had yet to leave the nest -as it were- and was still hiring aircraft from the company that taught him how to fly. I remember when I was at that stage, I attempted to depart Biggin to Blackbush on a quite marginal day. As I was taxing out the tower asked me to change to company frequency and the company told me to abandon the idea of departing in the prevailing weather. Later, once I had left the nest and started owning a share and making my own decisions, I wouldn’t even countenance trying to take off in the conditions that applied that day.
Here is a young lad, -told by the school he trained at- that it is okay to go, a minder would be there with him and he must have assumed the minder to be a qualified instructor otherwise the flight would be illegal and this school that had taught him every thing he knows about aviation would surely never condone anything illegal. It is quite clear to me that he thought he was there as a PUT capacity, and there but for the grace of God go a lot of us.