Huh? If the elevator was seized then the trim tabs would work in the opposite sense - back trim would provide down elevator trim because the tab would now be acting directly as a control surface rather than as a device to move the elevator itself.

PDR

TescoApp, here is one of the KFC-150 manuals (there are several version depending on the associated panel instruments).
https://support.bendixking.com//HWL/...377-0001_1.pdf

The whole set is here (click "discontinued")
https://www.bendixking.com/en/downloads-and-manuals

Page 111, General Emergency Procedures, details the disengagement conditions.
I understand that "Internal Flight Control System failure" covers all the case where the electronic controlling the servos detects that they can't move or need to exercise too high a force.

MelEagerToo,
I had mixed experiences with KFC-150.
Some worked real fine for flying heading or route, keeping altitude or making initial descent.
I remember also KFC-150 that fly a heading with a 12° error or a route with constant wobbling from -5° left to +5° right and which accept descent rates of -200 ft/min but jump to -800 fpm if I make any increment to the descent rate.
I never trusted this AP enough to use it elsewhere than cruise or initial descent, usually in heading/alt mode.

To all the contributors who investigate a complex chain of events involving the autopilot and airframe icing, I don't think all of this is necessary to explain this LOC-I accident. I wouldn't be surprised if the final report states that the airplane was perfectly fine until it hit the sea.

I worked for one company that they were rarely working and if they were you only ever used them for straight and level. If they could they would have stripped them all out but the mod for that was more than the airframe was worth minus engines.

Its not the hinges that freeze up its the balance horn that goes up to the leading edge that gets an ice bridge going along the leading edge and locks it tight. Twin tps' have electric heaters on them and it gets very restrictive under the MEL if they are US.

If icing is involved which if the freezing level was 3000-4000ft he was in exactly the wet sub cooled just need something to stick to area when it all occurred. They will never find out because it will have all melted when it hit the water so the aircraft will show nothing wrong with it mainly because there is nothing wrong with it.
You can fly IFR and not see the ground from 200ft until 200ft at the other end apart from that its inside of a cloud and the only time you will pick up icing is in the first and last 5000ft and we are talking maybe 3 cm thick on the spinners and leading edge in under 5 mins sometimes. You land with lumps of ice banging off the hull from the props and you can feel the boots inflating on the tail through the controls while you flare and the reaction of the back end change as the ice comes off.

A and C I think you are being a little harsh here. He passed over the Island and airfield at Guernsey in VMC and under control at that point. The flight became problematic for him when he hit the storm cell to the WNW of Alderney. He could have and should have diverted to Guernsey and none of us would have heard of him or his passenger again. Or he could have routed via Southampton all in VMC. I don't agree that night flying over sea is especially onerous and he would have made either destination with ease. Anyway, it seems likely that he started to hand fly at precisely the wrong moment...

Interesting point of view from a number of people who don't think, on the face of it, that a flight under an AOC is any safer than with a PPL.

An AOC (even the smallest) where standard operating procedures are mandated, operations manuals Part A to D must be followed, a Safety Management System applies, aircraft technical ground school courses are completed at induction or when changing aircraft types, Dangerous Goods course (yearly), CRM (yearly), Route & Aerodrome competence course (yearly), Compliance/Quality system in force, where the CAA audits 2-4 times a year - one a flight check, where external auditors audit around 4 times per year, where the pilots have around three flight checks per year (instrument rating, OPC, LPC, Line), a technical exam (yearly), a class one medical, emergency training (first aid, fire and life jacket/raft*) with exam (yearly except *), insurance company mandated qualification and experience levels, and these days even in a basic aircraft a quite sophisticated FDR data acquisition (even from a G1000 fit or similar), Flight time limitations are observed etc, etc etc, or you could have the Wingly PPL with 55 hours ........... or the grey/illegal charter up from Nantes

Really ???

The cost of the AOC is the cost of putting in place safe flying practice, of doing things properly.

I have read a lot here about a new CPL IR being no better under IFR than someone who has done 3700 hours of para dropping or glider towing which is clear nonsense. I did a lot of glider towing, but it was the CPL IR course that taught me how to manage a flight under the exact circumstances of the one about which we speak.

A further thought about pilots possessing an instrument rating. Not only have they received the training, but they have passed the test. Not everyone gets that far and some never reach the standard. In that way the IR is also a filter that stops those who do not have the natural ability to ever fly an aircraft in instrument conditions and points them towards a different path.

What makes flight safety is that the pilot or the organisation imposes to themselves safety rules, and well thought safety rules.
For an AOC holder, 95% of these rules are imposed on the organisation by regulation.
For a private pilot, regulations also imposes some rules but most of the safety comes from the good judgement of the pilot, something which is optional.
Some of the rules imposed on AOC holders are hardly available to the private pilot, like flying in crew (with MCC training) for all flights at night.

Unfortunately, several common safety rules have been broken on that flight.

Summary of facts and other information regarding the legality of the flight:

The Pilot

Fact: a private pilot, his licence did not allow him to pilot a revenue earning flight, whether or not he was himself paid. Even having his hotel room paid for him was not allowed under the FAA rules for private pilots.

Information: according to a post on this forum his EASA medical contained a restriction to day flying only due to colour vision problem, and by extension the same day restriction applied to his FAA piggyback licence because "all restrictions on the foreign licence apply".

The Aircraft

Fact: as a single engine piston aircraft it could not be legally operated commercially at night. A bona fide private flight at night (with a pilot who was allowed to fly at night), would have been legit, but not a commercial flight.

Information: according to leaked messages from the passenger it was always going to be a return night flight.

Jurisdiction

Fact: The aircraft was USA registered but UK based. If flying outside the UK, the pilot had to have an FAA licence and operate to the more restrictive of FAA rules and/or the rules of the country in which the aircraft was flying.

The Type of Operation

Facts: if commercial, the operator would need either an Air Operator Certificate from the UK CAA or a Part 129 Certificate from the FAA. According to the AAIB interim report this aircraft did not have permission for commercial operation form either the CAA or FAA. Nor would any of that permit the aircraft to be flown commercially at night anyway.

Information: it has not been established officially whether the flight was private or commercial. However, statements from Willie McKay as well as leaked messages from Sala, indicate that the flight was de facto commercial.

From the above it follows that: the only potential legal scenario is if the flight was a bona fide private flight (contradicted by the statements of Willie Mckay), the report on this forum of the pilot's medical restriction to day flight is wrong, and the pilot held at least an EASA night rating (unkown). More likely, the flight was illegal for some/all of the following reasons:

The pilot was NOT allowed to fly at night (based on reports of medical restriciton).
The pilot was NOT permitted to operate commercially (fact according to the regulations and airman database).
The flight was NOT private therefore it was an illegal charter (based on reports of Willie MaKay).
The aircraft was NOT permitted to operate commercially at night (fact according to the regulations).
The aircraft was NOT permitted to operate commercially by day anyway (fact according to the Interim Report due absence of requisite certificate).

I think often posts are deleted due to legal reasons or rude/hurtful choice of words. Perhaps try to repost taking both into account?

He could also have continued on autopilot at FL 55 to cross the storm cell. Illegal but it would still be alive. :sad:

Is it just me but don't we read this afternoons posts and think this is ridiculous?

The pilot is dead. The passenger is dead. The aircraft is at the bottom of the sea never to return. The agent who gets quoted will obviously at some point modify his statement to "clarify" who was doing what for whom and on what basis... and what the accident pilot told him he was able to do and what was legal to do.. because hey I'm just an agent and this guy I trusted as the pilot, blah, blah.

So we are twisting ourselves in knots to give a 100 reasons why the flight was illegal under EASA, CAA, FAA, to what end? If a flight ends in death and destruction through 1 illegality is that less deadly than if it has 10x the number of illegal factors? Will you be able to stone the pilot? I suppose you could if you find the body. Again to what end? The whole thing is utterly utterly meaningless.

Not entirely I think. Unfortunately in aviation a lot of knowledge gained over the years comes from analysing accidents. In case of that accident itself there is, in all probability, nothing new to be learned here. A pilot not trained and/or not current for what he was doing lost control. That has happened to professionals too and the lesson learned is always the same: More/better training and don't do what you are not qualified to do.

But here there is something extra that we all who fly should think about when we take the controls of an aircraft next time: Before pushing that "Start" button ask yourself: "Am I covered for what I will be doing the next few hours?" Will my familiy have to live under a bridge if it goes wrong? Was that budddy of mine really sayng the truth when he asked me to fly that plane for him and everything would be OK? Am I really supposed to take the buddies of my flying students in the back seats? Am I really allowed to fly a turboprop in Europe only because my Australian license says so? ... If one or two or three pilots will answer questions like these with "No!" in the future then this thread is worth being kept alive!

What next - no because those diligent pilots can already read a truck load of accident reports that give you the same, can already subscribe to CHIRP, GASCo, perhaps do a safety evening that are ongoing currently, do a bit of time with an instructor etc etc.

Those with no care will not. Yet while we look in the rear view mirror with perfect knowledge take a look at a recent yak52 fatal accidemt and how our very own ETPS had engaged with an entitity that couldnt have delivered what they were...

Indeed the more likely thing to come from this is evidence that the accident pilot and agent had been doing similar work for a while, well publicised and gone unchallenged... whilst the tangled web of regulation is just that. It certainly isnt helpful.

Very well put by What Next.

What sort of a legacy for those left behind is the one that reverberates for me from another PA46 accident that occurred many years ago, took six lives, and a trail of devastation in its wake. It had many similarities to this one.

To say it is meaningless is abject naivety. Piloting aircraft is first and foremost about judgment, if that is no longer required, the quicker we get computers and electronic wizardry to do it the better for us all.

Thankyou S-Works. That is helpful information which some posters on here seem to wish to deny.

Now I am going to make some predictions based on the facts and the other information that have surfaced so far. When the dust settles and the powers that be have concluded their inquiries it will be established that:

Ibottson did not have night privileges.
The flight was not a private flight.
The accident flight and the flight to Nantes were both illegal charters.

That changes a lot of the debate and it circles back to the fact that the pilot was clearly at fault for embarking on this flight that night. So there we have it, pilot error is the ultimate conclusion. But really we knew that at the outset really, like almost all crashes in GA. It is outrageous that someone could, without the rating, even consider flying at night in bad weather regardless of other legalities of the charter aspects. I pity his family who I can only assume had no idea?

Another question then. When a pilot submits his flight plan does he have to show his Flight Crew Licence?

Nope - many flight plans are submitted on line. In thirty years of flying (PPL) I have only been asked to show my licence once- ironically in France on departure from La Rochelle.

We are in furious agreement about judgement and the general wisdom of accident reporting but I don't agree that taking several years to produce a report that suggests flying an aircraft beyond your ratings, attempting a VFR flight in IMC or flight in an aircraft that holds a number of unfamiliar pieces of kit adds hugely to the value of that which could already be read from the vast library of existing reports. And I'm pretty certain that a near 4000hr pilot is likely to know the hazards, the reason why he couldn't be bothered to take heed / come to his senses is a human factor - the likes of which are actually very rarely investigated fully because at some point there surely becomes a fine line to tread with regard blame...

Yes of course human factors have been a significant factor in many air accidents. Sydney Dekker is one of the authorities on the subject. A most interesting and revealing talk by him was :

The human factor: Pursuing success and averting drift into failure - Sidney Dekker - DDD Europe 2018.

It may be found at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fwJ9xgvu3A

Here is an extract from

Handbook of Human Factors in Air Transportation Systems

edited by Steven James Landry

Page 337-" Human Error" Is a Judgment, contributed by Cees Jan Meeuwis and Sydney W.A. Dekker.
" Judging behaviour to be Human Error stands in the way of learning from failure. "

So far as blame is concerned let it be a judge sitting in his court decide. For those who are engaged in aviation at all levels, it must be the learning from failure that they must be concerned with.

Yes. But the failure in this case was (or rather: seems to have been) the inability or unwillingness of an individual to say NO when it would have been appropriate to do so. There is a lot of human factor involved there, no doubt. We all have been in that situation (even those of us flying in the seemingly controlled environment of airlines and commercial GA operations) and have either said "no" or gotten away with it with either luck or skill or both. For me this is less about blame or judgement but rather a question whether the lessons learnt here will help me to give the correct answer to the next difficult question my job will throw at me.

The AAIB report will look at the factors up the chain and not just at operator actions. I guess regulation will be cited as a factor - we can expect to see changes from the CAA in the way ad-hoc charters are performed and regulated. But even then, there will be people who put profit over safety and break the rules. In this case, a fare paying passenger who should have been protected by the rules died because the rules were disregarded. The CAA don't have enough resources for complete regulation and I suspect that the AAIB will recommend the CAA make improvements in the way such flights are controlled.

Absolutely. The AAIB report will not apportion blame - something that many, particularly those who have lost as a result of an incident want to see 'justice done' have an issue understanding. There are going to be legal ramifications and it's probable the judge will not allow the AAIB report or any evidence collected by the AAIB to be used as admissible evidence in the legal case. This is what is occurring in the Shoreham case. The AAIB report will concern itself with the facts and make recommendations. I suspect the CAA will be expecting another 'reaming' as in the Shoreham report.

Dekker is currently one of the best brains in safety. His ideas have heralded the introduction of new safety concepts - or 'Safety Two' as it's commonly called. A compilation of all his ideas is in 'The Field-guide to Understanding Human Error". It's a must read for all those working in safety or airline management. Or for anyone who manages complex systems for that matter

Nice film, pretty tough crowd but interesting and yet again furious agreement. I've not been advocating blame. I'm suggesting the process of investigation takes too long (timeliness is surely important if we are intending to learn from all of this?) , its distribution is not certain (so who learns what?), the mechanism and forum for learning is poorly developed (so you learn, but do I learn?), indeed if we refocus on aviation it isn't even clear that any actions suggested from the investigator are implemented by the regulator (rules and guidance developed from the past in a format that may consider what works or does not?) ...and what role for the regulator? (i.e. aviation is not the dutch town square model and all these AOC holders are not happy to highlight their failures... they absolutely are counting the risk free!!).

We can have a philosophical debate about if any of that is a good thing but if we are putting the armour where there are no holes, to use the jingoistic phase of the film, it surely validates the fact that focus on who was paying what to whom doesn't really matter. The aircraft was likely capable of flight in the conditions found and on the basis of the autopilots ability to automate the phase of flight this pilot [via evidence of his ratings] was not formally able to do, and perhaps not actually able to do given the outcome. So if we are looking at this from a purely scientific perspective we might suggest - throw all those EASA, FAA, CAA rule in the bin. Can you get the aircraft in the air? OK good. So for the middle bit read the hell out of that autopilot manual and learn that....Then you can at least have the accident on landing in Cardiff..

UK aviation currently has a no rules area. The sub 70kgs SSDR. You don't need a licence, the aircraft doesn't need registration, I've no idea if that category has a lot of accidents...Arh but hang on now I'm counting failure. Indeed now I think about it that's what the AAIB is doing. Isn't that what court cases do? Lets be honest we are going to reflect attitudes that seem to suggest a successful outcome. Yes we don't want to crash.... but now having crashed what are we going to do then? Take Shoreham. I remember when Shoreham happened the great cry even from the CAA, from BADA and the AAIB report all mention X death free airshows since... Good grief in the final report there are tables to the ying yangs on failure and that is before all of the formal rules and regulations that get quoted. In reporting this accident aren't many of the safety recommendations reflecting existing rules and regulations? and indeed here there seems a different of opinion between two national bodies, the CAA and AAIB as reflected here, which in themselves seem to suggest that the aims and aspirations are somewhat confused. Be lucky.

No.
Read the thread.

Jon I think that this element is the key to the issue. Once you get away from having healthy debate with those willing to have it about flight safety there is inevitably going to be some form of enforcement of rules and here the situation in this accident the trail goes cold.

Early on the question was asked of someone who was reflecting an exchange he had as an AOC holder with the CAA. The silence is deafening.

It would seem quite logical that if individual pilots and flying clubs as a whole have identified things that go on that have raised concern - which include things they have identified online - it is reasonable to assume that authority would also have access to that information. As has been stated on the basis authority has not been taking pilots to task - I can only find the Manchester PA28 pilots who has been taken to court - don't you conclude that authority don't see this as an issue? Because the alternative is that someone has been screaming very loudly at Gatwick to do something for years and nothing has been done.

The McRae licence issue was always going to be difficult to capture because of the nature of licence revalidation and him flying his own aircraft and the accident flight was a private affair effectively with his mate, son and his best friend. Utterly tragic and capturing those things almost needs a wife/father/mother to be given a heads up on the details to keep you safe and they can nag at you if dates pass etc.

Yet if the CAA were truly concerned just how hard did they need to look?? post 971

As a for example and one assumes that this post reflects the posters contact with the CAA
I have to say how those at the CAA can claim in March 2019 that they have suddenly become aware of something that they themselves published guidance upon as recently as August 2018 goodness knows. Fly a single seater!

The EASA ruling goes against all the regs I remember from my flying days. There were illegal charters galore; I remember one PPL doing six return trips to the IoM in one day during TT week, and his friend killing himself south of Port Erin while on his way to collect the passengers at the end of race week. The CAA sent a warning letter to the airfield but it made no difference, and the legal air-taxi on the field went bust. The one thing that did stop it was the advent of Jersey European and its new SD3-30s, undercutting the illegal charters.

Had anyone else died rather than Mr Sala we would never have heard a thing about it. I hadn't heard of Wingly until now, and I am horrified by its implications. Maybe it's time to educate the public with regard to insurance. I don't know if aircraft insurance covers hire or reward, mine certainly excluded it but that was 30+ years ago. Similarly my life assurance excluded flying other than in commercial aircraft with more than one engine. My company did cover me at an extra 20% on my premiums.

All very boring I admit, but the mortgage companies insist on life cover as a condition of the policy. What happens if/when the next fatal occurs? One of the big companies today charges an extra £12 per month per £100,000 life cover for light aviation, so a typical £250,000 mortgage would require an extra £30 per month. Does this apply to passengers? How do the insurance companies view this charter business, and shouldn't the public know about it?

Dan, any flight is eventually paid for by someone.

What constitutes a fare paying flight (or commercial flight) is that the beneficial owner or someone representing him pays a compensation for the flight.
What constitutes a non fare paying flight is that the pilot or the operator of the flight bear the whole cost of the flight.
A cost sharing flight is somewhere in between.the two.

A flight whose cost is wholly paid by the operator can be flown under FAR 91 and have a PPL at the controls if the pilot is the operator or if there is no transportation of passengers or goods.
If these conditions are not fulfilled, the pilot must be a CPL.
This flight with a CPL pilot is then validly flown under FAR 91 with the condition that the pilot and the plane have not been brought together to the person paying and organising the flight.
If they have been brought together, the middle man must be considered as the real flight operator and proposing a commercial transport service under FAR 135.

So, it is not the fact that the flight was made for the sole purpose of transporting a passenger that necessarily makes it a commercial flight.
If you, as a pilot, make a flight just for transporting a friend at no charge, that's not a commercial flight.

Luc Lion : Absolutely.
We all have suspicions as to what this flight really was and who directed who, , but as said before a few times already , the actual facts are showing it was a private flight ( i.e. Flight plan , no contract, no money involved, passenger confirming by SMS it was for free, etc..)
and unfortunately as it is for some people , unless something new comes up , when judging this case in court it will be the rules of private flights that will apply and not those of a commercial flight.