Caz,
You are simply splitting hairs.
Holbrooks boat was 2nms(ish) from the Mull and he could see the area just below the lighthouse. He reported the overall visibility to be 1nm(ish) in haze.
No contradiction there. As has been covered many times in this thread, visibility varies with direction. As an A1 pilot of course you know this.
He (Holbrook) saw the helicopter flying clear of cloud.
Any sane and reasonable person would average these two figures and say
"OK, vis was somewhere between one and two miles, helicopter clear of cloud, VFR."
The helicopter was flying towards a cloud covered landmass. So what.
The crew could almost certainly see the coastline, and almost certainly planned to turn before they got there.
What none of us knows is why they didn't.
So remind me again. Where was the negligence at that point?
Last edited by dalek; 15th Aug 2010 at 09:31.