I also agree with Duchess Driver, but I think most PPLs are a bit rusty regarding interpretation of Form215, on a club level this is just the sort of recurrent course clubs should offer.
The G-BIIJ AAIB air accident this is an excellent example of a PPLs with no IMC rating getting into trouble with bad weather on the way to a stag night with a passenger. At the planning stage the DCFI goes through the weather on Form 215, suggested that there may be some low cloud near the coast, but otherwise the rout was feasable. I am not sure if his interpreation was good or complete. Then another instructor ontained the TAFs and METARS for for three the destination and two diverserion airports, but was too busy to hand them over to the pilot. What always puzzled me about this is that the PPL seemed to be relying on the instructors obtain and make a weather decision. His mindset was 'if the DCFI thought the flight was feasible'. To cut long story short thirty minutes into the flight the weather was SKT between 400 and 600ft. As the pilot pressed on in a lowering cloud base, but eventy went into IMC. On contacting Manchester, in credit to the controller, he advised the pilot that the cloud base in the low level corridor was 500ft, effectively impossible under Rule 5 of the ANO. It is though the pilot headed towards the coast in the hope the weather would be better, unfortunately heading into the Snowdonia mountain range and struck a mountain (Tryfan) killing both the pilot and passenger, where the MSA would have been 4500ft AGL.
The AAIB considered that based on the form 215 forecast the flight was possible in VMC, but what the pilot failed to do was to compare the forcast Form215 with the Actuals (METAR), the Actuals (METAR) were far worse than the Form 215.. The planned destination was Blackpool through the Mancester low Level corridor with the METARS as follows as follows:
Manchester at 0720 hrs, 320°/08 kt with 5,000 metres in drizzle and few cloud at 500 feet
agl, broken cloud at 700 feet agl and overcast at 1,000 feet agl.
Blackpool at 0720 hrs, 320°/11 kt with 4,000 metres and few cloud at 300 feet agl, scattered
cloud at 500 feet agl and broken cloud at 1,200 feet agl.
Leeds Bradford at 0720 hrs, 280°/07 kt with more than 10 km and few cloud at 3,500 ft agl.
So the moral of this tragic story is always cross check the TAF and Metars with the Form215!
The report can be found at:
https://assets.publishing.service.go...pdf_500660.pdf