Sorry but disagree, and also believe Luc Lion may have some vested interest by his constant denial. The passenger believed this was a commercial charter just for him- when did he ever think otherwise?! He also assumed it would cost him money and offered to pay, but McKay junior told him he'd look after payment if Sala repaid him by helping him score goals. McKay senior has since stated it was a commercial operation and he was paying for it all, just as he's paid for previous flights. McKay also said something along the lines of "can't pay all that money for a player and put him in a Ryanair flight"- what he was insinuating was that this was some kind of luxurious and more expensive means of travel.

So, I have no idea how you can paint this picture that all those involved thought it was a private flight? You really think Sala got on that plane after being bought for £15m believing that the pilot was an amateur who was unqualified to make the flight in those conditions, was flying him out of the goodness of his heart and that the pilot was paying??! "It's great to have such good mates Mr Pilot, I dont know how I'd ever have got to Cardiff without you, barely enough money for a bite to eat". 🧐

Note, they didn't even know eachother prior to this charter arrangement.

Take a step back and look at the situation, there is no way that the passenger believed this was anything other than a chartered flight booked exclusively for him. He chose what time to leave etc. Flight plan was made to suit Sala's arrangements, hence that's why the original morning flight didn't leave, because Sala wanted to go at night!

This perhaps makes sense of why a third party's credit card was apparently used throughout the journey.

However, Luc Lion also mentions the criterion of passenger and pilot being brought together by a middle man. who as far as I can see from the above two posts is, by virtue of being a middle man, the de facto operator. Isn't that the case here?

(For the flights I keep referring to, on which I was a passenger, I never paid anything, but that doesn't mean no money changed hands: it undoubtedly did).

[cross-post]

So you believe Sala was friends with D.I?

In April 1998 a R44, G-POWE went down claiming the lives of its pilot and three passengers. The accident left three young children orphaned.

Here is the link to the AAIB report: https://assets.publishing.service.go...pdf_502209.pdf

Of particular note is the Parliamentary debate of this tragedy, below. Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.--[Mr. Hill.]

9.30 am

Mr. David Tredinnick (Bosworth): I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the important subject of helicopter and light aircraft insurance and regulation. I look forward to hearing the reply of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, not least because all the information at my disposal has been put at his disposal, so that he can give an informed response. I shall be focusing on a particular tragic accident in Leicestershire just over three years ago, when a helicopter crashed killing all on board."

The full text is at : https://publications.parliament.uk/p...t/10508h01.htm

Here are a few extracts:

"In the Linhart case in Leicestershire, the pilot, Coulter, seems to have been seriously irresponsible in many respects, and my constituents were the innocent victims. I understand that when the coroner announced the verdict of accidental death, those present at the inquiry gasped in astonishment.

Coulter had hired the helicopter from a local company, Heli Air Ltd., on a self-fly, hire-only basis. As such, he was neither allowed nor qualified to give instruction to others, yet it emerged during the coroner's inquiry that he had offered shares in the helicopter and had received more than £3,400 from various sources, including Mr. Andrew Byrne, who paid £3,400 in cash, which was receipted. In return, those who had paid received a part share in the aircraft or helicopter, as well as instruction from Coulter. Although it is accepted practice for pilots to take petrol money, that does not seem to be the case in this instance. Mr. Coulter, under the name Helitravel Ltd., advertised services of sales-hire-charter-pilot training through local leaflet drops. He was, therefore, flouting the rules, just as he went on to do at the controls of the helicopter when he took off at night in breach of regulations."

I wouldn`t be at all surprised if this particular tragedy does not come up in another parliamentary debate.

All very interesting. The AAIB have stated the investigation will If it transpires that Mr Ibbotson and Snr Sala were previously acquainted and had decided to share the cost of the flight, then everything was legal and there's nothing to see here. However, like many others, I seriously doubt this was the case.

Dan : The AAIB or any independent Accident investigation bureau will not look into legal liabilities. Not they job and against Annex 13 spirit. , they will assess if the aircraft was airworthy, all AD,s were done maintenance records, , what it was allowed to do and check the licences of the pilot in command .. you will find all this in final report. .
Me too , but there is another option : the owner ( or user) of the aircraft asked a friend pilot to do a favor and fly someone from A to B , all for free. that is also allowed under Private flights.
When John Travolta flew his 707 around and took people in it , it was all for free, John covered the costs all on his own , and it also met the definition of private flights.
I guess it he did the same for its last flight to Australia when he donated the 707 to Qantas. A few people were on that aircraft .and it was definitively not a commercial flight. .
But OK, the huge difference there is that John knew what he was doing and never flew alone. The guy on the right seat was not a novice either..but the principle is the same .

The problem I see here with Sala, if that we all have strong suspicions this was a commercial operation covered up and botched. But if everyone involve keep to their story and indeed no money changed hands,and the use of the credit card was just a loan from a friend, etc..all the facts support the Private flight theory. And if it ends up in a court , the judge will likely look only at the facts .

I can't see any court finding that this was a private flight. There is far too much evidence for them to spin it otherwise and the statement from McKay sinks it completely IMO.

I wonder if there has been a significant reduction in high powered singles and light twin movements since this has kicked off.

If you have a valuable Grade A asset why not employ a Grade A operator to fly that asset around! The cost of an exec jet with experienced ATPLs flying it is peanuts compared with the value of someone like Sala. They would not have flown at 5,000 ft over the sea, VMC, at night but at FLs in controlled airspace. The radar plot of the final stage of the flight appears to indicate a classic spatial disorientation profile, a known problem in the prevailing conditions especially if a pilot is not instrument rated. AAIB will no doubt consider this possibility.
I am not up to date on the shared costs aspect but I believe that a pilot must be considered to be flying on his US licence for this type of sector, in which case the costs would have to be halved with two POB? As has been said the AAIB is not particularly interested in this apart from determining whether or not it is a commercial or private flight and what effect this had on safety,

Not so.

No common purpose and no evidence of equal shares being paid.
No night rating.
No Instrument rating.

No common purpose. Not necessary if the flight was completely free (i.e. paid by the owner) .
No evidence of shared costs ; not relevant if it was a free flight.. In addition in my part of the word you have to prove things to accuse people , not because there is lack of evidence. And the UK , as far as I know is still a democratic country .
No night rating : yes and aggravating circumstances reinforcing the responsibility of the pilot
No IR : not relevant as the flight was filed VFR..

Do not find things to fit your suspicions. Nobody liked what happened and we all have serious suspicions , but t after 85 pages here , and unless new facts are brought in , for me the responsibility for this accident is still on the Pilot in command of that flight.
mainly because he did not say NO . He was not an employee , nor forced to do this flight and , and the aircraft was a private one.. If you want to prove it was a commercial flight in disguise then you have to brings facts on the table , a signed contract, a mission order , a money transfer to the pilot, etc.. in absence of any of this, it is just suspicions.

You can in the UK now along with the rest or Europe. I think they changed it around 2014 to get everyone the same in EASA.

That was the case in the UK until quiet recently.

CPL holders were counting night flight towards IFR requirements for single crew ops and a few other things so the changed it to align with the rest of Europe.

As the holder of an FAA ATP and former chief Pilot of a part 135 charter company I find it absurd that people such as ATC Watcher are continuing to portray this flight as a private part 91 operation.

"Willie McKay said it was not a cost-sharing agreement as "Emi wasn't paying anything" and that he was going to pay "whatever Dave [Henderson] was going to charge".

"When you phone for a taxi you don't ask him if he has a driving licence," he said.

You can say it as many times as you like, it doesn't change the fact that it was booked as a commercial flight. A decent legal eagle will rip the private flight argument to shreds.

These are the AAIB's own words from the preliminary report.

The AAIB final report will state all the relevant factors. If they consider the manner in which the aircraft and pilot were procured for this flight were a factor in the accident, then they will say so. It is the up to the CAA to decide whether they act on the recommendations. If those recommendations are that the CAA tightens up it's regulation of private charter flights - then I suspect we can see that coming. The CAA will decide independently if they wish to pursue this further, and will only do that if they are sure of a successful conviction. They may or may not do that - they have had a couple of failures in that department recently and the do of course have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was an infraction.

However, despite the claims of some on this forum who clearly have a vested interest that this was a private flight, thus passing all the blame onto the pilot, the whole thing is dodgier than a kosher pork pie and some wealthy people are out of pocket to the tune of 15 million. I suspect they will be looking at ways of recouping this in a civil case where the outcome will be decided on the balance of probabilities. If it comes to that, I don't think 'on balance' the odds are going to be in the defendants favour.

And I suspect the CAA will come down hard on the 'grey charter' market with increased regulation.

You will be surprised (although not others on this thread) of the information thats in the hands of the AAIB and CAA enforcements regarding this whole horrible mess. It was not a private flight in any shape or form, its was a purely commercial arrangement and the evidence is in the hands of the right people now. Its going to be an interesting couple of months coming up on this I think.

I will be very interested to see if the CAA take some sort of stance on the Jockey flights
. And how the aircraft operators on these "none" commercial flights justify them by bending the rules so that they can carry on regardless.
. Maybe more ramp checks at Racecourses or a not so discreet chat with those who facilitate such flights.

Well if aircraft that were flying every weekend before this happened are now not flying regularly they can pretty much tell exactly which airframes that were being used for this sort of thing.

….interesting how? This exactly demonstrates why this mess (and you are quite right it is a mess) will merely reflect inwardly at Gatwick. First of all CAA enforcements are going to do what exactly? stick pins in a straw effigy? We probably all agree the situation that relates to this flight, we will probably read about it a year later from the Branch and in the meantime the pilot will clearly be the scapegoat by anyone investigating, which would need to be the police because unless they have some other interest in aviation the CAA are going to enforce what exactly? A football club, football agent are affected how? They probably wouldn't even respond to the voicemail.

Yet I suspect anyone else not involved in this accident might simply quote the CAA's own guidance in defence of similar actions. You can read them in CAP1590 and this summary here:-
https://www.caa.co.uk/General-aviati...aring-flights/

I'm not sure who is sat around the table when these things get written but they are not the sharpest. Just see if you can spot the utter muddle in this and do you think that brighter minds might somehow manage to create a structure that sees the items included in Annual costs get rolled into the rental fee that suddenly become Direct costs.. or indeed if you rent an aircraft from a flying club their rental fee includes elements of annual costs? What happens if the flying club aircraft is owned by the pilot? and so on... You hit the nail on the head it is a mess and an entirely predictable one. That is causes a huge number of accidents I don't think it does but having had a high profile accident the nonsense of the situation is now of focus.

Do you mean increased regulation or increased enforcement of existing regulation? The latter costs money which someone--- taxpayer or the regulated--- will have to pay. Conversations within Government are likely. There may be Parliamentary interest.

The big change will be when someone realises that they are going to lose £15M.

It will be the big organisations that will stop their footballers and jockeys flying in anything that isn't part of an AOC operation and probably with two pilots in a perf A aircraft.

In the end it is the insurance companies that will make the rules and make people stick to them.

That is a funny one and one that has been raised before.

Case 1 - I rent an aircraft from a club or owner and my 'cost share' can be calculated on that cost which does include the full hourly cost of the direct and indirect costs
Case 2. - I use my own aircraft so suddenly the hourly rate reduces from £200 to around £80-100 or so.

Of course, what I could do is to buy an aircraft, set up a company to operate it and rent it back to me at the higher rate. Does it matter if the hourly rate my own company charges me includes admin fees and other indirect costs that puts a £172 to £400 per hour, if the market will bear it?

""Of course, what I could do is to buy an aircraft, set up a company to operate it and rent it back to me at the higher rate. Does it matter if the hourly rate my own company charges me includes admin fees and other indirect costs that puts a £172 to £400 per hour, if the market will bear it?""

Without prejudice on my behalf and in no way accusing anyone, how else could it work in the Jockey, Grey charter world?

Technology is a great enabler, including the amazing ability to record moving images and some how make them available to others around the world.


2018 seemed a world away and here some salesman called Grant Shapps (50ish mins in) who is from the UK talks about the advantages of deregulation and the headline for the issues are labelled as "challenges to adoption".

You can hear 30mins of Q&A it doesn't seem the great and the good are that oblivious. No.1 question (1hr 10m ish) is about the passenger..."How do passengers with no experience about aviation know what is safe or not...." Oh the irony..

Technology a great enabler and

"How do passengers with no experience about aviation know what is safe or not...." Oh the irony..[/QUOTE]

Well, once upon a time, in days of old there once was a telly series " Rogue Traders ". Let`s get Matt Allwright to impersonate a football player, he is too tall to pass off as a jockey, and take to the skies in a light plane with one of his traders from his hall of fame. That might do the trick.

Forget his politics he sounds like a cheap salesman in that video and his view on medicals was borderline idiotic because by extrapolation of his view nobody needs either medical, licence or any other checks or balance.

Chronos hits the nail on the head - just how difficult would it be to mystery shop those providing cost sharing flights?? Those whose remit it is are maxed out and someone needs to call time.

I can't see much to criticise in that clip of Grant Shapps, to be honest - I'll re-listen but didn't hear any dismissal of medicals. Not sure I can face listening to the whole 1hr 40 mins of it. I'm not terribly sure that this aspect of the discussion is relevant to the thread. Maybe time to start a new one devoted to Wingly Vs AOC? I've no idea about Mr Shapps or his track record but I do know that he's the best advocate GA has in government and for that reason, in general, I would listen to his views favourably. Anyway, let's find another thread for this aspect of GA and standing on this particular soapbox?

Its not a soap box its incredulity. Remember this film is from November 2018 and not only is it incredible that it is the regulator that is the host but that having taken the various sales pitches the Q&A has no guidance, clarity, engagement from those who are going to provide oversight. There is nothing. Q&A from 1m10 is about the risk to the passenger, and what he may or may not know. The answer given is dominated by the cost sharing platform representatives and nothing from regulators. The platforms will try and explain and highlight a variety of points to the passengers but they accept that things are not very adequate in that regard, yet it seems that despite the acceptance of risk and the ability for those not acting in the spirit of cost sharing, the road ahead is we will carry on regardless and I heard nothing from the regulator(s). i.e. might have been a good idea for EASA to say "we are going to do random mystery shopping to ensure things are as they should be..." For example.

There is a complete muddle about fixed/variable costs - why? and yet the pilot can pay 0.000001% of the flight etc. Its just so random. Which brings us to 1m 20min in and Shapps talking of data and medicals. The logic is just flawed where the view articulated is that lets look at the data, yet were it isn't available then first de-regulate then after deregulation prove a safety case for future regulation. So in some ways with this accident they have what they wanted but I'm not entirely sure it looks very intelligent nor what the public, who in this case is a victim, expected.

I respect your view but am going to consider this for another thread. I think we all agree that extra hours generally makes for better skills and better skills lead to safer operation in GA/ PPL flying. I am also unconvinced that because I am over 50 (just!) that I need an AME to look at me annually to tell me I'm not going to die of heart failure at the controls. It's an interesting debate but unrelated, really, to the subject of this thread IMHO. I shall await the AAIB conclusions on the DI/ Sala flight and until they are published, this thread is getting a bit random.

ShropshirePilot, I disagree that more hours always = better skills. In theory yes. Not always in practice. I know 200-300hr ppl's who I feel safer with in the air than 5k+hr CPL's. I might fly 5x less than a similarly employed pilot, yet do more instrument flying and more take-offs and approaches, purely due to the nature of the job. Some pilots claim 10k hrs but they spend 5-8hrs in the cruise each flight just monitoring, which clocks up lots of hours but limited actually handling experience. In 5 hours I can carry out numerous joins to up to 10+ ILS and 10 Radar approaches. These can be totally IMC and down to minima. Risk is increased with a lack of experience, yes, but don't get hung up about hours being the be all and end all. The pilot of the accident aircraft had a fair few hours, unfortunately just not of the type of hours required for the flight he elected to take that night.

It's a fair point and well made, but I did say "I think we all agree that extra hours generally makes for better skills".

DI clearly lacked the requisite skills for his final mission.... despite hours at the controls

If you were to read post no 1689, you may perhaps be persuaded to change your mind.
Here is an extract from the link in that post.
"I recognise the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth. It may well be necessary to ensure that people are properly covered when they go flying. An element of caveat emptor is involved. Someone who is not a pilot and goes private flying should first check whether the pilot is insured and that they are not invalidating their own insurance cover. If a company hires an aeroplane to someone, it has a responsibility to ensure that that person is competent and has the necessary insurance cover. I should like to see common sense applied to those matters rather than further regulation.

All of us who are engaged in aviation in Britain know that the number one priority is safety, the number two priority is safety and the number three priority is safety. The Royal Air Force trained me, and I can assure my hon. Friend that safety is the number one interest of all of us engaged in aviation, because our lives are at risk."
The above are the words of Gerald Howarth.

Not really: that's dated 8th May 2001 - it's a fine piece of parliamentary debate, & sound words by Mr Howarth, but Shapps wasn't a member of parliament until May 2005, so what has it to do with him?

He may have had hours but he was totally unqualified and unlicensed to carry out that flight. If you go back a couple of pages and look at the picture of his licence he was a PPL limited to day only flight.

He knowingly broke the rules and was responsible for not only his own death but that of an otherwise innocent passenger who had been ignorant of detailed arrangements. No amount of 'nod and a wink- it goes on all the time' will change those facts - unpalatable though they may be.

Ibbotson should never have 'elected' to take that flight.

Yes of course, who could reasonably argue with that.

The question that really matters is, why did he.

If that is in response to:

"The question that really matters is, why did he. "

It would suggest money motive. But others have suggested his financial plight might have been brought about by his bug for flying.
Could the answer not be, the opportunity to fly was simply irresistible. That which is so common to many affected by the bug, he just jumped to grab any opportunity to fly. And that affliction is sadly, the ailment that divides, those who do it to earn a living and those who do it for personal reasons. It is such a shame that he failed to cross that divide. He would then have had the opportunity to discover what the job really entailed.