CAAAD
I am a bit surprised that in a high workload environment such as seems to have been the case, single pilot, poor visibility, and so on, the pilot was texting.
The texts sent/received in flight were whilst the pilot was in VMC above the cloud:
0747 Pilot to Witness A:
VFR on top at 1500 feet
0748 Witness A to Pilot:
But can you land?
0751 Pilot to Witness A:
No hole hdg back to red
0753 Witness A to Pilot:
Ok
0753 Pilot to Client:
Over Elstree no holes I’m afraid hdg back to Redhill least we tried chat in 10
(The pilot obtained clearance to Redhill and, at 0753, ATC asked:
“Rocket 2 do you have VMC or would you like an IFR transit?”
The pilot replied:
“I have good VMC on top here, that’s fine, Rocket 2”.)
0755 Client to Pilot:
Battersea is open
0755 Pilot to Operator:
Can’t get in Elstree hdg back assume clear still
0755 Operator to Pilot:
Yes it’s fine still here. (This text was not read.)
The last read and sent text messages were approximately
four minutes before the collision with the crane:
At 0756, following the message from the client telling him Battersea was open, the pilot asked ATC to confirm.
It was only
after ATC confirmed that it was, that he subsequently descended - while waiting to be cleared to Battersea.
He was using the radio to talk to ATC until a few seconds before impact.
The AAIB considered it unlikely that he was distracted at the same time by composing a text message.
I agree, and would go further: I regard it as extremely unlikely.
Firstly because there is not a shred of evidence that he was and, secondly, because the available evidence suggests that he wasn't.
FL