I find it unbelievable that he was allowed to carry on the way he was up until the crash.
I first met him 3 years ago, when he first started to set up the operation on SXM. I thought about accepting an offer for employment in his start up company, but after a few "business meetings" I quickly changed my mind.
At one point he told me had flown back from Anguilla at night in weather so bad that he had to get radar vectors from Juliana Tower. He even complained that they made him fly at 2000ft on the way over. I told him this was both stupid and illegal, but he just laughed it off, and said it was no problem since he had 1000s of hours of instrument time in fixed wings.
According to newspaper articles and comments on this site, his night flying was a regular occurrence, and the government used his services on numerous occasions.
How is this possible? How can a private helicopter be allowed to fly at night (and at times in IMC conditions by his own statements), as well as be used for commercial operations (tours, charters, medevacs etc) with the full knowledge by the authorities that he doesn't have the appropriate paperwork in place. (they are after all the people that approves these things in the first place)
As sad as it is, and as tragic as this case is, I have a feeling that if the seats where filled with a family of 3 when he crashed, this case would have been blown up all over the international news, and all the illegalities of this and preceding flights would have been given a lot more attention.