Shipreck
States
The pilot of the WA Police crash should not be blamed either, Management put him there.
This inquiry certainly indicates that management has many shortfalls, but surely the guy flying had some attributable blame to the accident.
The guy, (with not insignificant experience mind you, 2423 hrs total with 111hrs on type) had successfully got overhead Newman after a 2hr 20min NVFR flight, without incident before it all went wrong. And in a nutshell what went wrong was something as simple and dumb as gross fuel mismanagement.
He arrived overhead with an estimated 165 L of useable fuel, unfortunately in the wrong tanks (ATSB Report) and suffered fuel starvation. From that point on he and his passengers didn’t have much going for them and even the best of us would have had a hard time I would think.
Now take out the other issues (important and serious as they may be) how is the fact of fuel mismanagement not the blame of the pilot.
Its one thing to try and blame management for everything but as PIC you must accept some responsibility for your actions and occupation.
Hopefully we don't end up with a breed of pilots all saying
'NOT MY FAULT, HE CAUSED IT!'