So I can easily see how this guy and plenty of others ended up in trouble, no idea how current or well trained or otherwise he was but this could happen (and does) to plenty of PPL's
Well in FAA land he should have done six approaches in the last six months, not a lot really but surely enough to ensure he wasn't going to lose control in relatively benign conditions by the sound of it. If he wasn't current he shouldn't have filed IFR.
One does here of incidents of IR rated pilots losing control in IMC, mostly in the US because the US has a much larger PPL/IR contingent. Very rare indeed and certainly not enough to offset the overall safety benefit of having more PPL/IRs but I have heard of cases...usually happens after an equipment failure or in turbulence but not always. Some will have had chutes, most not though and likely some will have paid the ultimate price for their loss of control. Thankfully this guy walked away.
I noted from the interview that the interviewer didn't actually get out of him why the crash actually happened...the guy made it sound like the aircraft started spontaneously doing things and that he was just a passenger. I was also amused that he said things like "we train for this all the time..." as if pulling the chute was some sort of complicated procedure that needed training for.
I'm very pro-chute in general but the tone of the interview made me think this guy was an idiot; if he made a mistake, fine, people do and I for one would never assert that oft heard assertion that "that would never happen to me", but if sounded like he was being very dishonest about what had actually happened. If he'd explained to the interviewer that actually he had lost control of his plane on a routine approach and then crashed near a school I doubt the interviewer would have been so praiseworthy...
