The football agent was well aware of what was going on, he had his own aircraft doing the same type of flights as far back as 2016….. flown by Henderson and Murgatroyd amongst others before it was crash landed having substantially overflown its maintenance check period. The CAA weren’t interested then and I doubt they will be now- too much historic face to lose.

At the time :

KLM depart Nantes 1715 arrive Amsterdam 1900
KLM depart Amsterdam 2120 arrive Cardiff 2140

Sala arrived at the airport at 1830, they departed at 1900, ETA at Cardiff about 2100. Not a lot of difference.

Strewth - another layer in the murky world this has revealed. Truly disgraceful if true that the CAA seems content to let this mess alone.

I understand about the 'face problem, but there must come a pint where the embarrassment plus potentially the threat of legal action will move them. Given their recently increased & somewhat aggressive seeming readiness to drop heavily on misdemeanours by ordinary private pilots going about relatively routine activities and making what in many cases are evidently honest mistakes, this is poor, to say the least.

This is called "going for the low hanging fruit". A common sign of a poor administration.
Can someone link to an AAIB report for this.

The AAIB report was based on information provided by the pilot…….. no proper field investigation and no interest in the legality of the operation. No doubt difficult for the AAIB to follow through but the CAA were aware. If only it had been nipped in the bud back then.

If the fruit hung any lower than this “operation” they’d trip over it!

Say half hour booking in at Amsterdam makes it double the time. And what if he did arrive at Nantes for a commercial flight departure at 1830, could he have got a flight then (he seems to have been delayed for his flight so perhaps it also was not possible to arrive earlier then 1830).

Think of this as a possible analogy: no NHS exists. 100% private medicine

You need your appendix removed (job offer in Antarctica).

Do I go to a qualified surgeon for a straightforward operation, or go with a failed medical student (Ibbotson failed to complete his CPL groundschool course) to performs surgery for half the price. The failed medical student had performed similar operations: they were essentially successful although there had been some post operative complications (CAA correspondence to ac owner)in the past.

So far as your friends are concerned they go flying with you in the full knowledge (hopefully?) you are not a professional pilot who is subject to jumping through the prescribed hoops every 6 monthly. They weigh up that ‘risk’ and make a decision. As statistically small as it might be, a sudden loss of power [Engine fail of the one engine just after lift off] on a single pilot multi engined piston will invariably prove fatal. Loss of Control.
It would require a serious level of skill given the sudden reduction (90%) in Performance. This critical situation is unlikely to be practiced.

I didn’t fully appreciate the serious reduction in performance until I started undertaking C of A renewal flight tests on the Seneca 3 at PIK last century. The single engine 5 minute climb sequence certainly opened my eyes as to just what a loss of power just after rotation would involve. You need to be mentally prepared on every launch.

As a fare paying pasenger on commercial flights only (pre-covid; none since) I would respectfully suggest your analysis is wrong at the point I have highlighted.

The 2 scenarios you outline are in no way symmetrical/ analogous.

In the first scenario, you are the boss. If you say that the flight is off, disappointment apart, there is no pressure on you not to exercise your judgement.

In the second case, the punters didn't pay you to cry off at the last minute. They're paying you good money, maybe in cash, for you to get them there and they don't take kindly to last minute hitches.

Even more importantly perhaps, you know that if you call the flight off, the financial repercussions for you are real.

Hence, I submit, the danger of a non-professional decision over the decision to fly or not to fly is much higher in the second case than in the first.

'So far, so abstract'

One real issue I have seen alluded to in the last few pages but not developped, I reckon, is the element of teaching or instilling what I might call professional judgement in the more advanced licence examinations which the pilot involved in this sad case had not undertaken .

My worry is not with the issue of teaching but rather with the issue of the ability of commercial pilots to exercise this judgement in the real world of national/ international aviation.

The posts which I have seen here have taken it as read that the commercially trained pilot has imbibed these principles and that there is no pressure not to exercise professional judgement when needed.

As a less than enthusiatic flyer, I would love to believe this was the case. But it does seem a somewhat idealised picture given the commercial pressures involved.

Actually they are. There is a direct comparison because in both cases there is a risk of “gethereitis” causing a bad decision, it’s just driven by different motivating factors.

In the one case a desire not to deprive a 95 year old veteran of what may be his last reunion with old comrades with whom he risked his life 70+ years ago, in the other pressure from a type alpha passenger whose attitude is: “I’ve paid and want to fly”. (FWIW, in my case the former would probably be the harder to resist, but I’d resist anyway! :))

My ability or inability to make the right decision is the same in either case and depends only on my ADM skills, willingness to use those skills to make an objective decision and the determination to implement it.

Note: this is NOT a comparison between a pilot with a CPL and all its associated training vs a PPL/IR, it is the latter either being paid or not for the same flight and, again, I stress: this is in no way in support of grey charters which are illegal and should be stamped on.

And, by the way, even an ATPL doesn’t necessarily immunise a pilot against this kind of bad decision:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smolensk_air_disaster

Whilst I agree with this analogy: that’s not the comparison I made.

I simply said that, given a non-CPL licensed pilot, in the same aircraft, in both cases the risks are the same.

In other words: the appendectomy done by the (failed) medical student carries the same level of risk whether they are being paid for it or not.

Yet again, I stress: this is not in support of grey charters!

I don't think the data supports your view: objectively, the measure of risk is surely the accident rate per number of flights: this is just one article, but it quotes Eurostat data on fatalities, still somewhat simplistic because it doesn't seem to take account of the difference in hours flown, but it's a start. I would hazard a guess that the number of commercial hours flown against private would swing the data even more in commercials favour. https://thepointsguy.co.uk/news/flyi...an-commercial/

In the tragic case here, surely Sala would not have been in that aircraft in that piece of sky, if it were properly chartered & flown? There would be no need for it to be desperately trying to stay VMC fighting the weather, a commercial crew would plan to avoid such circumstances anyway?

alfaman

Please read what I have now written in three separate posts.

FTAD (and please excuse my use of caps, no offence is intended! THEY ARE FOR EMPHASIS ONLY) :)

I AM NOT SAYING THAT A GREY CHARTER IS AS SAFE AS A PROPERLY CHARTERED AND FLOWN AIRCRAFT

ALL I am saying is that a flight undertaken by ANY pilot is neither safer nor less safe PURELY AS A RESULT of whether the pilot is being paid or not.

It is the same aircraft, whether safe or unsafe, the same pilot, whether competent or not, with the same NON-CPL (i.e. PPL or PPL/IR) qualification, flying in the same bit of sky, in good weather or bad, at the same time and subject to the same ADM considerations as discussed in my earlier post.

In the one case the pilot is being paid (illegally!) and in the other he / she is not. That is the only difference.

I think we understand your point, but don't believe it is quite correct. The decision whether to cancel a flight or not is quite different where you are just giving your mates a joy ride, and can say "weather not good enough, lets go and have a drink in the clubhouse and come back next weekend", compared to paying 'passengers' turning up and expecting to be taken - particularly if you need the money, and are concerned about the 'fixer' saying they won't use you again.

I do remember quite some years ago when BA ran helicopters in the North Sea, pilots aborting an approach to a platform where there was a parked second chopper at one end and the lit flare stack was blowing over the other end. The oil company platform manager wrote to BA ops saying they were obviously unreliable and they wouldn't renew the contract. This got up to the BA Chairman, who wrote to the oil company Chairman putting things straight, and all hell let loose at the oil company, with the platform manager back home in Houston quicker than you could turn around.

Can you imagine McKay accepting that from Henderson ?

Each to his own I guess.

I have never flown any kind of commercial flight as a pilot, legal or otherwise, but have never once had a problem cancelling a flight for weather or technical reasons and have done so several times in very pressing circumstances.

I am also absolutely sure I would have no problem doing so if I was being paid.

I've flown with ATPL's and PPL's, individuals in both have exhibited traits where I would be happy to fly with them any time, and others no way in the world if I could help it. For a commercial pilot the standard is set by the employer, it may be good, or it may be the absolute pits. There are no guarantees with what you're getting, other than by due diligence checking of who you wish to employ. Buyer beware.

Always bearing in mind, of course, that as with much of aviation, if you don't do the flight, you don't get paid ...

I did thanks, & no offence taken, but nowhere have I said your view is in support of grey charters. My point relates to the risks of private vs commercial. If I've understood you correctly, your point seems to be that the same circumstances with pilots of different qualification level would meet the same fate: but different qualification directly relates to whether paid or not, hence my reference to the data. Competence isn't being used here as a term to describe whether one is a fantastic flyer or not: it means the individual has had their professional skills assessed as meeting or exceeding a set standard.
My point is that a) that ain't necessarily the case, because b) the qualification may well mean the aircraft should never be in that same circumstance, because c) the qualified pilot should know better than to ever put it there - by dint of the skills demonstrated by their qualifications. Even if by some quirk of fate, they do find themselves in that same piece of sky, & fate decides to be a b!tch, then the qualified pilot has been trained & assessed to be able to handle that situation effectively, & successfully. That's not to say a PPL/PPL/IR wouldn't have a successful outcome, just that the odds are significantly less, & perhaps rely more on luck than judgement - that is the difference.

In a former life, when I was a chief pilot in an airline, I always emphasised to newly promoted captains that they were 'long stop', and that one of their more difficult decisions would be when they needed to say, 'No'. I emphasised that if they did so, and even if they were wrong, I would always back them up. One of the strengths of a properly run AOC operation is for captains to know they would have the backing of the company when making these difficult decisions.

Edit - wrong report!

Now we are getting somewhere!

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/u...plane-20468815

https://assets.publishing.service.go...BAKH_06-19.pdf

alfaman

No: not different qualification levels.

What I have been saying is that THE SAME PILOT would probably have the same result whether being paid or not. I acknowledge fully that a CPL is a higher qualification and that a properly conducted genuine charter is safer that a grey charter.

Following on from Hipper, you might wish to google COMED AVIATION LTD where one Robert George Murgatroyd operated an airline that ceased trading in 2003.

It is unlikely that a professional pilot on a charter would use a single engined piston aircraft across water at night. Even if the pilot was qualified in all respects, would the AOC permit a flight across the English Channel?
That is what would separate a professional operation from a cowboy operation.

Had CO poisoning not occurred, and the AP remained serviceable, I would suggest that Sala would have arrived at Cardiff.

Ok, so I admit I'm confused: I can't see how that circumstance can arise? How would a CPL find him/herself in that position in the first place?

If the same pilot in this instance wasn’t being paid, would he have have attempted the flight at all?

OK: one last try.

A PPL/IR Pilot WITHOUT a commercial licence (CPL) flies a friend from Nantes to Cardiff in a SEP. He is not paid anything. Although the flight carries a level of risk associated with flying in a SEP over water, this flight is perfectly legal.

A few days later, the same pilot, in the same aircraft, flies a different passenger on the same route in identical weather conditions but this time he is operating a grey charter and charges his passenger £500 for the flight. This flight is illegal because the pilot is not allowed to charge for it.

Although it is clearly illegal: why is the second flight inherently more dangerous than the first?

Who knows? Getthereitis is a disease that can strike for all sorts of reasons and money can be one of them for sure, but is far from being the only one. There are plenty of pilots in the cemeteries who have taken on flights they shouldn’t have for all sorts of reasons.

Ah, OK now I think I'm with you: in that instance, I agree, it probably isn't dangerous for those two flights in isolation. But perhaps if we remove the IR element, both might be considered foolhardy? The AAIB report states - A loss of control was made more likely because the flight was not conducted in accordance with safety standards applicable to commercial operations. This manifested itself in the flight being operated under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) at night in poor weather conditions despite the pilot having no training in night flying and a lack of recent practice in instrument flying.

I suspect the answer lies in the perception of rule adherence/rule breaking. If your pilot is prepared to break the rules to make some cash, what other rules is he also prepared to break? Landing below limits? Controlled airspace boundaries? Weather limits? We've stepped beyond ignorance of the law, into knowingly breaking it - from there, it's a slippery slope. So, yes, perhaps those flights will be conducted effectively & without incident, but at some point in the future, all those cheese holes will line up.

In the sad example which generated this thread, the final flight was the culmination of a series of transgressions, accumulating like flotsam on a beach: sure, no doubt previous flights were flown without incident (although there's evidence not totally without), but at any point, the pilot may have been presented with a situation that his skills & experience couldn't handle: tragically for Mr Sala, that flight was the one he was on.

"A PPL/IR Pilot WITHOUT a commercial licence (CPL) flies a friend from Nantes to Cardiff in a SEP. He is not paid anything. Although the flight carries a level of risk"
Would that pilot do so in the weather forecast for this flight, in an aircraft he was unfamiliar with?
Would the friend, knowing him, accept without questions?
Sala was NOT a friend of any of the people involved. He was a trusting innocent, betrayed by the system he trusted

Alfaman sums up the situation in a clear & concise manner.
It is very unfortunate that CO poisoning occurred. The maintenance quality of the ac is clearly called into question.
The deadly Swiss Cheese model rears its ugly head…usually there are something like 10 events in the ‘chain’ leading to an accident. Break the chain at any point and the accident would not have occurred.
We await sentencing on 12 November, & the Inquest February 2022.

If you make the comparison specific to this flight, then yes, you are right! Paradoxically, if Mr Ibbotson had been a “plain vanilla” PPL with no instrument training at all, he might (should!) have declined the flight as obviously being beyond him.

But that said: see also the JFK junior accident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey

JFK junior wasn’t being paid, but died (and killed his passengers) in an accident not completely dissimilar to this one (no CO poisoning but VFR Pilot, and SEP over water)

No argument from me on that! What’s even more painful is that he was clearly frightened yet continued to trust both pilot and aircraft.

That is a strong argument for intensifying enforcement against grey charters.

Thank you, appreciated.

Indeed - the pressure to get to destination due to letting family down, even though the flying circumstances have changed, perhaps not dissimilar to the situation Ibbotson found himself in. JFK jnr didn't break the law as such, but the flight was perhaps unwise in those changed circumstances without having previously attained sufficient training & experience to conduct the flight safely. Perhaps it shows that money isn't necessarily the only driver that can compromise sound decision making, rather than that money isn't one, though?

My point is, Ibbotson wasn’t flying to Nantes and back because he simply wanted to do the flight. He only went because he was to be paid.

Yes, that’s quite right!

That’s quite right, but my earlier posts weren’t about his motivations, but about whether the fact that he was being paid for an illegal flight IN AND OF ITSELF made that flight more dangerous than if he - the same pilot in the same aircraft - was not being paid for that specific flight.

Ok, I appreciate we're in the world of "what ifs..?" - but I'm not clear on how the payment aspect can exist in isolation, without being motivational; & so without increasing the commercial pressure, & therefore the risk? For example, if the previously mentioned pilot were to fly his friend for no reward on the first, then fly the grey charter on the second, without being aware he was going to be paid until he was presented with a brown envelope at destination, why would he be there - what other reason could there be? Surely the payment is part of the motivation for the second flight, in the same way the friendship is part of the motivation for the first .The risk of killing a friend may lead to a more cautious approach to risk for the first, whilst the motivation of losing a fee & letting a paying customer down, with no repeat business forthcoming for the second, may increase the risk for the second? I don't understand how the pay aspect can ever exist in a vacuum?

It is not more dangerous, the rules are just more relaxed for a private flight, presumably because each person has made a personal choice to go on the flight, have seen passengers refuse to take a private single engine flight. On a private flight all the passengers will have a personal relationship with the pilot, on a charter the passenger, likely as not, wouldn't know the pilot from the proverbial bar of soap. The regulations require a higher standard of care for fare paying passengers. In my day single engine aircraft were not permitted to be used for a charter requiring over water flight, IMC, or night flying. All because of the associated risk, but a private pilot and passengers have the ability to accept those very same risks. UK regulations are the same are they not? US rules I know not, in any event, does the UK allow US registered aircraft to engage in charter operations within its borders, I doubt it.

^^^ What Megan said.

Remember that the regulator sees its responsibility first to regulate on behalf of the "public". Thereafter, and to a lesser degree, for "private" individuals. So, if a service is "publicly" available (meaning that the prospective passenger has no "private" relationship to the pilot), it'll be more heavily regulated as a "commercial" flight. The regulator can hardly account for every permutation of flights, so they draw a line. A PPL is taught which side of that line to stay on (pilot cannot be paid), CPL's are taught additional requirements associated with commercial operation expectations.

If a person is boarding a flight, does not know the pilot personally, and is paying for the flight, it's a commercial flight. The pilot is required to be at least a CPL. Other OC requirements may apply too - but it is not a "Private" flight.