Thanks for all the expertice on insurance. I found it interesting that one contributor to this thread stated that insurance will pay out for an overweight takeoff? Surely an illegal flight?
To what level of illegality will they pay out? I am sure if you dig around enough there will be some scrap of information or lack of it which could techically deem a flight illegal AOC or Private.
If a flight that results in an accident can be found to be illegal does that mean no payout?
Lets take an AOC as private flights appear to be the focus for illegal flights in this thread.
An AOC operated aircraft crashes. The insurers discover that some piece of paperwork is missing or an element of maintenance or operation has been lacking.
The flight is now illegal. There is NO evidence that whatever was missing that technically made the flight illegal made any contribution to the accident. Do they not pay out in those circumstances?
There are and have been many instances of "legal" Air charter where something has not been done by the book and hence technically the flight could be deemed illegal.
I find it hard to fathom that technical illegality could stop a payment when it is proved that the reason for the crash had nothing to do whether the flight was techically legal or not but the cause of the crash was something that could have happened to an AOC or Private flight.
As in the example of overweight takeoffs which incidentely in a training Cessna 150 happen all the time the insurance will pay out although the flight was in all probability an illegal flight?
So an aircraft that takesoff into a flock of Birds, looses both engines and crashes but is then found to have not been legal AOC or private because it was 3 hrs over a maintenance check will NOT be covered by insurance?
Pace