So a bit of the speculation so far
Fuel contamination or wrong fuel?
Pushing on due to commercial pressures?
Secondary problems happening after the initial issue and by then he was too low to recover?
Trying to Stay clear of CTA?
A mixture of all these things?
Who knows yet.
Lets face it.From all reports this guy was a fine young pilot, and you only need to listen to the tape to hear how calm he was under a stressful situation(although i never heard a mayday call on the ATC recording?)..I doubt very much that this guy would have descended below a safe height had he known the problem was that bad earlier although as already mentioned it may not have been until he tried to
mantain height after the descent that he found himself in the sh1t and it is possible that a secondary issue sprung up upon trying to apply more power or with some other change of setting..
I take news reports with a grain of salt, but the Australian today had done more research than any of the others in regards to the nature of the flight etc, and in that report it was stated that he had been cleared to RI if he wanted it and that they could accept him in no probs, but at that stage he obviously didn't think that he needed it and chose the well trodden well known field..Time will tell if that's all waffle or not and if it isn't then what a crucial decision it was to push on.A decision Im sure all of us have faced at some point or another..
Its amazing how many of these situations people walk away from and then one just goes really really bad.Very sad indeed...
Not to say that GA pilots are bad pilots, more that they simply don't have the depth of training that allows those qualities to fully develop.
I agree, but what your not taking into account is that the specialist training you receive in an airline is a very expensive process, and from what Ive heard it isn't that easy to start out as an airline captain and end up as a grade 3 instructor.There is a process of starting out and learning as you go on the job, and maybe there needs to be more government support to make sure all pilots going for a CPL gets the opportunity to have some of that specialist training at the governments expense, but I still think that time is the key in regards to experience.You just cant stuff 10 years of flying experiences into 2.
How would you see that training being instilled?