I knew Jenny Moala but as a collegue not a friend. What can I say. APNG has a zero tolerance approach to taking weather risks and have never, to my knowledge at least, given any pilot a "negative experience" because of an abort or a weather related decision. I can only conclude she was unexpectedly caught out in the worst possible way.
There is no way known Jenny would have been attempting any of those stupid acts suggested elsewhere in this thread. She would have been attempting a standard VMC approach to Kokoda. Of that I am certain.
Last tuesday I flew over the gap 2 hours before her flight and I can confirm what others have said that there was a layer of stratus on both sides of the ranges.. tops around 9,000 extending north east to the coast and covering Moresby to the south west. God only knows what was below that but obvioulsly it was not good.
The press reports have been almost uniformly appalling and inaccurate. They have reported her uncle as saying she joined APNG earlier this year?!?! Jenny worked with APNG for years just as Simon Wild said. Tho she did only finish her command training in May.
How do newbies actually get their PNG experience these days? When I started it was thru a process of route and strip endorsements. The training pilot would methodically point out low level and escape routes, typical weather patterns, minimum heights for a missed approach etc. Then you were set loose on your 206 or islander. But not before getting the drill on flying to the right in a valley, crossing ridges at an angle, manoeuvring with the horizon obscured by mountains and more... all good stuff. Any blanks in the training were hopefully small and soon plugged by experience.
I dont profess to know anything about what happened last tuesday, but I have a definite dislike of diving down valleys hemmed in by cloud. I got my scare just south of the kudgeru.. taking the valley down to sea level in a loaded 206. The space I had to operate in got smaller and smaller and the aircraft didn't have the climb performance to climb back up the valley. The cloud was on the ground at the bottom but fortunately there was a break... not a nice feeling.. having no options. But that never happened again.. ever. Experience is a wonderful thing.
These days as piston flying has all but died, it seems that experience is passed through osmosis as a newbie will invariable do a longish stint as FO in something like an otter. Is this approach as good as before? dunno, but we are stuck with it I suppose.
Lets hope when the dust settles we can all learn something from this accident and if anyone is eventually held accountable that they truly deserve it.