No ... wrong!
"anti-authority, invulnerability and macho"
No !
try:
"conciencious, fastidious, niave, well intentioned and untrained"
Wake up please ... how many more need to die before someone understands what the true cause is?
I find this constant insult to the dead grossly distasteful, unfounded and unfair.
A guy who learnt in blue sky - had his flight test in clear weather, doesn't understand parallax and who has never seen a cloud up-close from a moving helicopter may well not know how to keep himself out of the cloud... it does not mean he 'deserves' to die !! He was just let down by a system which couldn't make up its mind how to advise a VMC pilot how to maintain Visual References ... treats IMC as something can 'just happen' and gives them 30minutes (or maybe even 5hrs) in some 'foggles' (which don't even limit the peripheral vision) of pseudo IMC ...and expects them to save their live this way.
Disgusting.
Pilots must be shown how to maintain Vis Ref and perhaps even be tested on it... simply because it does not come naturally to some pilots.
(.... who made the Darwin comment? Tasteless! families and children and lovers read this.... Heartless, thoughtless, B'tard - Apologise!)
time for a beer....