Granny & Spraygear -
Sasless - Very professional comment - I would have expected nothing less from a man of your experience.
Just one observation from the comments is that it was a dark evening. Nothing was mentioned if she was wearing NVG's or not?
I work for the Norwegian Air ambulance (Flying BO105 which is a single man pilot operation) and they have just started sending us on all on NVG certification. The thing is, if she had NVG's on, could her peripheral vision been reduced. But if as Red Wine said
I guess we all know the servicability of the aircraft prior to the contact with the trees, the actual weather onsite...IFR...VFR....rain, turbulence, CB's, mountain waves, icing, visibility...........because if we don't, we surely can't pass any type of informed comment, yet alone judgement
We don't know the full metar for that evening. So no-one has the right to hurl derogatory femminist crap at a fellow pilot.
Without blowing sunshine out of her arse, but don't forget, she managed to fly the machine whilst injured, and the make an emergency landing after having to hang around for an hour and then land the damn thing without injuring more people. Deserves a medal, if not some serious fellow professional praise.
LS