dublinpilot
On the basis of that way of calculating the MSA, I have no problem with that provided the visibility is OK and the peaks are far enough away so a PPL could either descend straight ahead or do a 180 and descend then if necessary. But a fair number of people do get killed that way, getting squeezed between rising ground, lowering cloudbase, and worsening visibility. A lot of the stuff emanating from the CAA is telling people to make the turnaround decision early.
gasax
Surely one would sort out the plane first, and anything else (like PAN calls) comes second. The chance of hitting another plane is extremely small.
I suppose this debate would come down to how far the adjacent high ground is when calculating the MSA...