I am absolutely with you. Given the current ethics, I say we live with an existence statement: 'We feel for certain there exists an illegal part' ?

What is ironic is the total media silence on the two Brits that flew their aircraft into the Pyrenees recently and non stop cover on this one due to Celebrity. If there's any good to come out of this avoidable mess perhaps the authorities will deal with people operating dodgy schemes to get around regulations that were created to make the public safe.

Insurance is important because the act of getting correctly insured is a major step in the validation or otherwise of any given commercial activity (like commercial aviation). Insurers do not generally insure non-compliant activity (not implying anything whatsoever about this accident).

The employers liability CH is referring to is called Death in Service Benefit, and it will depend on the employer's terms and conditions of employment, which will be almost infinitely variable. However, a very frequent and standard clause is any payment made in the first two years of employment will be a single, not very big, lump sum. What Cardiff City have in place nobody other than the employers and employees of said outfit will know, but the suggestion that his family will benefit is somewhat fanciful. He was single and childless, was he not not? That means he has no dependents to pay out too. Death in Service schemes do not normally pay out to parents/siblings, they are designed to protect dependents.

I agree all this is speculative and not the most important part of the flight safety discussion (albeit, it is significant in the context of licensing), so might I suggest, people who don't know about insurance and associated issues, stop posting (guessing) about the subject. That way we can stick to the flying.

Well I have extensive (sort of) experience of jumping out of such aircraft.

We never paid the pilots anything. Maybe a lunch in the pub afterwards. There was a queue of them wanting to do the work. One of them drove 150 miles each way for a weekend's jumping. They fell into two categories. Young guys who wanted the hours as part of building up their experience to apply to an airline. And older/retired guys who did it to keep their hours up at somebody else's expense. I believe glider clubs work the same way with glider tug tow pilots.

Unlike glider towing and parachute dropping, banner tower required required a CPL and it was in my case. Likewise I only ever did parachute dropping for payment.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new about 'grey charters' which this one certainly was. There is nothing grey about them though. Want to fly someone or something in return for money?......get an AOC. It's that simple and entirely black or white. The regulation is there, but the policing isn't. We made the conscious decision to get out of the King Air charter market because we simply could compete with illegal charters, or bullshit 'private flights' where the passengers 'lease' the aircraft from the owner, then hire a pilot separately.....(Illegal charter dressed up to look like something else). Me and many others have highlighted this to the CAA on many occasions and yet they do very little about it. It's a shame to say that the lack of action by the authorities, (EASA and the national regulators) makes them complicit in this dreadful and entirely avoidable loss of life.

And don't kid yourselves that this is limited to small piston aircraft. It goes up into some very high end biz jets too. On private cat, the safety margins are completely eroded. No margins on RWY length required, no limits to crew duty hours, crew training is basic and falls way short of AOC standards and the whole process has hardly any regulatory oversight. It's a farce that is ripe for smart arses who revel in profiteering by ducking and diving around the regulations at the expense of best practice and safety of those on board that are ignorant to risks they are taking.

This poor footballer who knew nothing of the complex regulations concerning air charter simply wasn't protected by either the regulator or the industry. And a naïve pilot who wasn't protected from his own error of judgement.

Probably because the former were both experienced pilots doing their thing. I agree there is 'celebrity' involved in this incident but in my opinion the two are far from similar.

Unfortunately, you don't have to look to hard on Facebook to find PPL holders with aircraft offering to 'fly you anywhere'. My local area residents FB page has three pilots regularly posting (advertising) to fly you, none of which are locally based.

Recently a Guernsey airtaxi service started up by a company called 'Waves'. They were clamped down on because they were essentially advertising & operating scheduled flights. They've now gone bust. They were using a single-engined plane There's also a seaplane service looking to start up. Plenty of stuff in the local media about both operations. I don't know what qualifications / regulations apply, but the 'Guernsey Air transport licensing board' may throw up some useful info if you can be bothered to google?

The flight was arranged by McKay but?
 

It seems Mark McKay admitted to arranging the flight. However, he was not the agent of the passenger (at least not formally). Was Mark McKay acting as agent for Cardiff City or Nantes or was he effectively agent for Sala? Did he do something wrong by arranging the flight. Did the pilot do something wrong? Did the beneficial owners of the aircraft do something wrong? Are the beneficial owners protected from liability by virtue of the trust arrangement? Could the trustees be liable?

These are just some of the questions that will no doubt occupy lawyers and courts for some time.

On the basis of the information available I would not have elected to fly at night over water in marginal weather in a single piston engine aircraft. I suspect that many pilots and passengers would also have chosen not to fly. Sala was under pressure to be in Cardiff for training and perhaps that was the irrational factor that caused the choice to fly. It is a tragic story.

I cannot imagine the grief and regret of all concerned; in particular the families and friends of those missing. I hope that this tragedy will result in some changes to reduce the chances of this kind of incident from reoccurring. When in doubt, stay on the ground. I also hope that the authorities will resume the search for several days more, for the sake of the families. Hopes may be remote at this stage, but not absolutely impossible if there was a life-raft available. The lack of debris may suggest that the aircraft did not disintegrate on impact and has sunk largely intact. However, the safety of the SAR personnel must also be a factor in any decision.

I suspect there are a number of people who have substantial responsibility for this reckless flight that should never have happened. Whoever actually suggested and promoted this flight to Sala has the most responsibility. I suspect Sala was a young guy wishing to please in a new environment at Cardiff with minimal knowledge of general aviation. He would probably have just trusted those that recommended this flight and crossed his fingers. We all know questioning such suggestions can be seen as insulting and can be awkward to do - certainly to press doubts very far. This flight was patently so stupid with so many blindingly obvious high risk factors - old plane, single engine, piston engine, night, winter, fairly poor weather, across extensive water, virtually unsurvivably cold water, poorly qualified pilot, inadequately competent pilot, single pilot. And no doubt more. Whoever was the de facto owner/controlling mind of this plane must surely have known of the proposed flight. And should have said it was not suitable and stopped it. Anyone introducing the flight to Sala should not have done so without either having sufficient knowledge or asking someone that did have. Fail again. And the pilot should have had far more responsibility and said the risk factors were far too high to be inflicted on an unwitting, vulnerable passenger. And not accepted the flight. I find it hard to believe Cardiff FC have no responsibility either - they should have delved into Sala's travel arrangements more than they did and taken some advice. Which could have been as simple as Googling "Cardiff aircraft charter" which would have brought up local Dragon Fly amongst others, and simply called them for advice, even if they had no interest in chartering a private jet. Had they sought such advice, Sala would surely not have been in the fateful flight.

Clearly there were significant motivating factors for poor Sala to end up on a totally obviously inappropriate flight which cost him his life. No doubt these will come out in the investigation.

It would be interesting to hear why he got so close to boarding the aircraft but changed his mind.

Reports are he used this aircraft several times before, so he was not completely unfamiliar with GA.
High risk is your backwards judgement. There are many flights undertaken under similar circumstances.
Looking at the available data from the time of departure, I would have departed as well, only difference I would have gone IFR high not low.
The weather was not too bad to abort in advance and the aircraft, if maintained well, quite capable for that mission.
The most interesting part will be the facts on license and competency of the pilot. Judgment from after an accident is always biased and we should be more driven by facts than emotions in discussing causes and mitigation strategies. Yes, if we find out the pilot was reckless, by which reason ever, we are perfectly allowed to be angry on him, but the mission wasn't per se.

Hello!

What you write, jumpseater, is very true.

Every commercial operator must issue a ticket to every passenger, not only within the EU, but in every country that operates under basic ICAO standards. This must no longer necessarily be a piece of paper as in the old days, but can be electronic instead. And it must clearly point to the terms&conditions, the passenger rights and a few more things. Being issued such a ticket is often the only indication to a passenger that he is going to fly on a state-supervised commercial flight.
So even if my employer, manamegent, club or whoever else arranges the flight for me, I as passenger should always ask to see my ticket. That is actually the only thing one can do to verify that they booked me on a legitimate flight. Of course upon boarding one could ask the pilot to display the AOC (an officially stamped copy has to be carried on board all the time) and his license, but not many passengers even know about the existence of such documents,
Let's hope that this tragic accident increases the awareness of the general public towards these issues.

If have seen numerous self-printed OPATB2 tickets serving as private gift certificates. No problem to get the template and do it by yourself (yes, been there have done). Some Uber/Wingly/'Sharing Society' institutions even offer(ed) a service to get such ticket. Some guidelines also suggest to issue 'tickets' for every private flight as well. Which pedestrian can tell the difference to homemade and btw, what is an 'official' ticket?

It could still be accurate. Even a small lamp is extremely bright on the IR band. LED lamps are less so, but any typical incandescent bulb actually emits 50 times more energy in the IR band than in the visible spectrum.

PDR