squeaks. it all comes down to 'it depends' on a lot of fronts. Without writing an essay, it depends on what's in their ops manual (which I'm not privvy to) to determine the category type, night operations, dispensations etc.
The category type is irrelevant in this accident, as the aircraft was a twin (which I mentioned in a subsequent post anyway). It originally slipped my mind the the aircraft was an AS355, if it were an AS350 then there would've been a few factors that come into play WRT category type.
How do you know that there was no floodlighting? A car headlight can supply perfectly adequate floodlighting, I've had no problems along those lines in the past.
How do you know there was floodlighting? I don't know if there was floodlighting or omnidirectional lighting present, that's what I asked in the first place. The news reports suggested that the met a boat tour group (read; no car headlights). The ATSB hasn't mentioned anything about ground lighting as yet.
I still take the viewpoint, unless there was adequate ground lighting I personally don't think they should've departed in the first place with the aircraft equipped the way it was. May I stress that I have not alluded to or speculated on the
cause of the accident, anything could have occurred.