other determined by AAIB most probably to a sudden death incap in poor weather.
Selective reading there. Just because it couldn't be ruled out, doesn't mean it was most probable. Read the report properly and take your rose tinted glasses off.
1) Questionable performance from an airfield simply unsuitable for CAT. Under EASA regulations, it needs better than perfect conditions to justify Stapleford with a King Air CAT.
2) Poor weather, with no professional way of measuring it aside from being able to see some trees. No decent information on cloud base etc...
3) A non-type rated pilot in the RHS. I don't care how experienced he was, he was not licensed or qualified to be there, and there were no multi crew SOP's to follow.
4) An inexperienced pilot. Not only inexperienced on type, but his first proper commercial flying job and fresh to line.
5) Subjective training on this new pilot. The same trainer who trained him, signed him off too....really???? That's unbelievably subjective, certainly not best practice, and in reality not in compliance.
6) Commercial Pressure. - Whether directly or indirectly, the guy was under pressure to get going with the ops and management watching from their office. Picking up the owner of West Ham who is a good client of the company. Risking him missing kick off. Definitely commercial pressure going on, with an inexperienced commercial pilot.
7) Before anyone pipes up that this wasn't a CAT flight, it was. It was positioning to a live leg CAT, therefore it is a commercial flight. Check the EASA rules. This was also the case under EU OPS and CAP360 before that.
8) Ineffective regulation by the CAA. Their rules (Pilots assistants, Perf B, tech log entries etc...) and they failed to enforce it, despite over 5 years since the publication of FODCOM 2010/21. What the hell were they looking for when they did their 6 monthly audits??
9) A 20+ year old King Air, that probably flew 500 hours pa yet no notable snags in the tech log? Again, what were the CAA doing on the audits? Wouldn't anyone with half a brain not realise that a 20+ y/o King Air without any snags recorded in the tech log is too good to be true? There is little excuse to carry snags, that aren't recorded in the book or MEL'd, from the aircraft home base. Just get the base engineers to rectify the snags before next flight.....or maybe that's the problem. There weren't any licensed engineers from the 145 available to do it perhaps??? Has the 145 company be brought to task by the CAA over their involvement in this practice of not reporting snags in the TL?
This has nothing to do with the aircraft type, or the very slim chance that the P1 suffered SDS. It's to do with the regulator allowing standards to slip to a very dangerous level, and the operator allowing the commercial pressure to rule over good practice and safety. Had Mr Sullivan arranged to board this flight at Stapleford instead of Brize, the AAIB report would read very differently, and there would be a lot of sweating at LEA and the CAA.