The rental charge quantum is more than ‘Cost Sharing’ element. Therefore given your details of the cunning plan it fails. AOC necessary to remain lawful.

The problem is this was a journey by Sala in his own time. The large football/rugby teams use AOC operations moving the team, I see them regularly. Lesser league teams don’t fly, the potential league penalties for missing a game (wx divert/tech) are too onerous, I looked at this with one UK league 2 team a good few years back.

If a premiere league footballer wants to change club (overseas) his agent would do the arrangements, the club he’s leaving is unlikely to be told he’s in meetings or negotiations until the deal is done, so travel etc would be in a private capacity. The agent has a financial interest in making as much money as possible from the deal, step in the likes of Mr Mckay etc.

Jockies, it’s up to them to get from meeting to meeting. If the venues airspace is class G it’s pilot determined if the weather is ‘viable’ and they’re departing/landing at a private site. If they’re riding for two different owners at two different locations on the same day, which owner pays for the transport? Neither, it’s up to the rider that get from event A to B. If a ‘mate’ agrees/offers to fly them for ‘free’…

I could see the FA/jockey club et al, making a recommendation that clubs/owners ensure ‘company’ travel is appropriately licensed and insured. But that’s not going to stop an incident like the Sala case as it wasn’t ‘company’ travel.

It should be obvious from this case that any type of aerial or public transport work carried out on either a UK or foreign registered aircraft without the required pilot qualifications and AOC documentation is illegal.

This includes private aircraft used for a business and persons flying on board such aircraft as part of their employment. I would suggest over the last two decades a lot of air to air photography seen in magazines is in breach of these rules.

Questions must also be raised over parachute aircraft operations in the UK.
Ibbotson was clearly getting material benefits from his parachute flying in acquiring flying hours.

I would suggest that most of the so called Wingly flights are also in breach of the regulations.

Is skydiver dropping in the UK regarded as commercial work? Here it can be legally done on a PPL, even for tandem drops, as all participants, tandem pax included, are required to be signed up financial members of the local parachute federation, pilot included, hence considered to be members of the club. Has always been the case. Still have my letter of authorisation from the sixties.

Good Morning Megan I'll be as brief as I can :)

After 30 years in aviation (two years in a flying school, but not in a flying role) I now work in Compliance and Due Diligence. I have considerable subject matter expertise in Financial Regulation and Data Protection Regulation. Both areas which have in the past decade or so have had to have considerable regulatory intervention following widespread abuse, often of a criminal and fraudulent nature. Regulation plays a vital role in moderating the legal boundaries of any commercial industy; finanacial greed - which is a timeless element of the Human Condition - will always overcome moderation in any free market enterprise. Note: this is not a political position - I am a nailed on free market capitalist myself. :)

Regulation is at its weakest when two factors combine:

• Enabling narrative, in other words ambiguous or vague text that allows for favourable interpretations that allow the "boundary pushers" to go beyond the legally acceptable.
• Regulations which do not establish easy/accessible opportunties for continous and real time audit and due diligence.

I believe both are currently present in aviation regualtion (not just in GA, but right across the board). Specifically in GA, I think the latter point is potentially more prevelent. Hence my disgreement with your earlier statement:

The fact is in aviation, legal action often only happens after an accident when people have already died.

I have been on Pprune pretty much since it started (changed my un a while back). Through this website I have witnessed hundreds of fatal aviation accidents and thousands of deaths, with many of them having regulatory failure playing a major role. Sometimes, for an ex-professional aviator, who practiced - and taught - flight safety, some of the fails are truly staggering.

I'm not going to give lists, any aviation professional that studies accidents with the simple goals of maintaining and/or raising their own flight safety awareness, will by now be nodding and thinking on any one of countless accidents featuring on this website.

It does not have to be this way. Other industries have put their own regulatory house in order - it's time aviation did too.

Thanks for reading, for those that did - I've made my point. Not everyone will agree - and that's absolutley fine.

Safe flying everyone.

Not necessarily monetary. As I have written before, at our parachute club, quite some years ago, the pilots were not only unpaid, there was a queue of applicants, because they wanted not the money, but the hours. I remember banter about how WE might even charge THEM ! One of them drove a considerable mileage to and fro each weekend for the opportunity.

And of course, there are then carriers, mainstream AOC holders, that will not consider a junior FO applicant unless they have x hours in their logbook. However else do they (and the CAA) think such costly experience could be gained ?

Was Ibbotson ever considering applying to a mainstream operation ?

I’m sure I read that Dave Ibbotson had an issue with colour vision. This would bar him from a Class 1 medical pass and therefore he would not be able to hold a commercial licence.

He should not have been flying for financial gain.

Reference is made in the AAIB report about his colour vision ~ para 1.5.3 refers. Although his initial medical in 2001 identified an issue and imposed a restriction, in 2012 a more extensive examination took place which declared him ‘colour safe’ for night flying. Presumably now capable of Class 1 standard as he began groundschool for the CPL written exams?
I think this was at Cabair, but failed to complete the course/exams.

David Henderson’s logbook would make interesting reading as well, assuming it was ‘entirely accurate’.

Fair enough. But he didn't complete his CPL qualification.

Henderson, as per all of us, was disallowed by age from single pilot public transport operations - seven years ago.

Richard Dangle,

I find myself very much in agreement with what you have written in your post 2364. I have sent you a PM.

Public transport aviation is more regulated for the simple reason that it comes with a duty to protect innocent passengers. Genuine air taxi companies see work lost to cowboy outfits who save money on maintenance.

I doubt Henderson was spending money having the ill fated Malibu checked every week or two . Heat exchangers around aircraft exhaust systems are a well known risk when it comes to carbon monoxide poisoning.

I accept there are many pilots operating N reg aircraft within the rules but the fact remains the motivation is reducing costs.

Grant Shapps is a classic example. He should be setting an example instead of registering his aircraft via a brass plate company run from a small rented house in East Anglia . This is the same company that the Sala Malibu was registered through as are dozens of others in the UK.

As some of you may know apart from holding PPL licences for the last 35 years I am also a retired journalist with a keen nose on smelling a rat.

Shapps is both gamekeeper and poacher and I question why he needs to avoid the registration of his aircraft on the British register in favour of a small operation run by a housewife from a tiny village in Norfolk.

In my opinion Shapps has questions to answer and despite the howls of protest on other sites suggesting a press agenda I feel he should resign.

However given the latest decision by Boris I suspect he will no longer be able to lobby for aviation related companies.

Seems like a pretty misogynistic attitude there. If she's running a significant company (you call it small but also complain about how many aircraft it looks after), I'm not sure why you're dismissing her as a "housewife".

We all know why so many aircraft are on the N reg, and it's for perfectly valid reasons. Fixing the G reg is the way to get more people to use it, not punishing the N reg.

No it's not; the US authorities would never tolerate me (or more so a US citizen) bouncing around the USA long term in my G-reg aircraft.

Not just the USA but most developed countries in the world adopt this policy. Let’s face it until recently there were a lot of UK based aircraft and helicopter owners using countries like Lithuania to operate old ex military airframes.

The main points of the Sala tragedy were summed up in this part of the report below.

The whole issue of prolonged N registered light aircraft operations by non US citizens will no doubt be explored by lawyers seeking damages for the outcome of the incident . I would suggest the insurance companies will be reluctant to pay out and the buck stops with who?

In reply to Katamarino I was highlighting that the UK’s biggest N trust operation is run from a rented cottage in Norfolk. As a retired journalist I was merely pointing out the tabloid take on the situation. To use generic terms the use of the American aircraft register in the UK is a brass plate operation to avoid meeting the Civil Aviation Authority requirements . I see your aircraft is registered to the same organisation as Henderson’s so I guess you have an axe to grind.

Grant Shapps operates his aircraft through this limited company while he is overseeing the CAA! Is that right?

The final paragraph refers to “grey charters” which is a term that can be used to refer to a number of scenarios outside simple charging passengers for a flight.

I suggest it could also refer to someone owning an aircraft and claiming the costs back via a company. If that person then takes employees in the aircraft as part of their work schedule that could be classed as commercial operations. eg flying employees to a meeting or engaging in air to air photography.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....916603264.jpeg

Seems David Henderson is appealing the sentence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59438989

David Henderson aged 67 is fortunate that the CAA didn’t unearth sufficient evidence about ‘certain styles’ of alleged aviation activities prior to the Sala tragic accident.

Start with the regulation which prevents single crew commercial flying from the age of 60….

Lenient sentencing guide lines
 

There is a system for anyone to appeal a lenient sentence on the CPS web site. Sorry I cannot post a link.

If anyone feels minded to go down that route. Just saying........!

The judge's sentencing remarks make interesting reading. I am thus curious as to why this mature, educated, former RAF man, surrounded it seems by a well-grounded, loving family and many solid friends prepared even to support his character before a judge, would be daft enough to engage in such risk taking, especially when everything you need to keep hidden depends on the known-to-be wayward antics of some under-employed, cash-strapped gas-fitter? Something still does not make sense to me, here. Maybe Henderson, too, had financial problems, but even that looks a weak motivation for playing with so much fire. Would be interested in anyone's thoughts regarding grown men seemingly 'taking leave of their senses', as it were. And as for the sentencing appeal; that one looks to me like more playing with fire. Given the judge's generosity so far, I would not be surprised if the appeal backfires and even more jail time gets added. The Sala family's private prosecution and the Inquest are yet to come, do not forget.

Just engaging out of interest in a broader point...defo not looking to drift the thread by being in anyway controversial.

Human beings (all of us) are nowhere near as smart and evolved as we think we are. We all suffer from the effects of confirmation and cognative bias as well as a ton of other physcological phenomenons. I recommend Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" as a must read for anybody who wants an insight into how close we still are to our cave dwelling forefathers in terms of rational thought.

Everyone here will have seen our fellow human beings do incredibly, incomprehensingly dumb stuff for no apparent meaningful reasons. And most of us will hold our hands up and admit we have done the same - I know I have. A lot of the time, the thing that has the biggest single influence on any given outcome is simply pure luck.

Background, education, IQ, life experience etc - no matter how blessed one might be in those departments - offer no guaranteed immunity to irrationality, poor choices and bad decisions.

That's why humans need rules, laws and structures. In some occupations, we need a lot of them.

This is a person who made a considerable business out of flying long range ferry flights in single engine light aircraft, such as across the North Atlantic in Cessnas and Pipers, and in fact made a TV programme about it. If that's not risk taking I don't know what is. In contrast, crossing the English Channel in a higher-end single must have seemed trivia itself.

YMMD!
Summed up perfectly.
Btw. one of the biggest Online Platforms exists mostly out of this (Yout*be), to prove your point.

Read part 91!
 

Before posting about what 14 CFR part 91 allows and does not allow people should actually read it. Part 91 is applicable to commercial operation and there is no prohibition on being single crew conducting a commercial operation over age 60.

Please stop referring to commercial operation in general when the point you want to make is in reference to a very specific subset of commercial operation.

Those participating in these discussions are fully aware that this US registered aircraft was based in the UK, and not in the USA.
Commercial operations were not permitted by either the FAA, EASA, or UK CAA.
Licensing was based predominantly on EASA regulations.
It is as much an academic discussion here on PPRuNe that pilots aged 60 or more, under EASA, cannot fly single crew commercial operations.
He was illegal on multiple fronts, convicted & jailed for 18 months.
Now appealing the sentence.

The age limit of 60 applies to single public transport operations, which the type of flights under main discussion are. Generally speaking, if you approach an AOC holder and buy a seat, it’s public transport.

Deterrent needed?
 

Well, if it is deterrent you seek re' grey chartering perhaps this legal upgrade affecting Europe's coach and road haulage industries from February 2022 may bring hope:

" 7. Joint liability of shippers
A joint liability principle was introduced, whereby shippers can be held liable for the infringements committed by the hauliers they use where they knew or ought to have known the transport services they commissioned involved infringements. "

Were AOC law to include a similar principle it would become easier for CAA, etc, to go after all those in the background, at least in future cases. Perhaps more importantly the deterrent effect could well be significant, instantaneous and all at minimal cost.

Just a thought...

I would rather wait until:

a. There are a few successful prosecutions based upon the “Joint liability “ principle outlined above.
b. See an example of how it might be framed in UK law.

The phrase “ought to have known “ would give me cause for concern and thus lead to yet another law on the statute book that is never applied.

YS

If not already done, the CAA legal dept need to explore the concept of Joint Liability so that when the likes of football agents etc need to hire an aircraft, they know full well that an AOC operator is the only option.

Perhaps when the MPs get involved, the Department of Transport can give ‘direction’ to the CAA to draw up proposals for new legislation.
PPRuNers might consider writing to their MPs, and Grant Shapps, Secretary of State for Transport with your concerns.

So who might have been jointly liable here ?

Henderson ? Ibbotson ? McKay ? McKay Junior ? Southern Aircraft Consultancy ? Cardiff football club ? The CAA for looking the other way ? Sala ?

Seems like a route to lawyers' riches.

I remember a minor CAA campaign (about ten years ago?) where they produced leaflets for potential passengers, explaining the requirement to ensure that a proposed flight was sought from an AOC holder, rather than any old Joe Soap PPL holder who fancied illegally earning a bob or two and risking it.

These were placed on the desk at Battersea heliport and other places and handed out at major events.

CAA launch consultation on cost-sharing

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/corp...hared-flights/

The CAA enforcement need adequate resources and legal authority to undertake HMRC style forensic examination of financial transactions where these unlawful activities are suspected.

Adequate publicity will be needed with any changes in the law to make it abundantly clear that even ‘aiding & abetting’ such activity is an offence with fines/jail time.

Deter the practice with beefed up legislation & the feeding frenzy of M’learned friends will be reserved for an occasional Crown Court appearance.

Somewhat similar case reported from France: PA-46 accident passengers wrongly believed they were flying with airline | News – Intecaerospace

Rich people making mistakes that only rich people can make; trying to be cheap

And regulators turning a big, blind eye. Quelle surprise.

Wow - unbelievable, especially as the KLM Loyalty programme is called "Flying Blue"

Like the concept of AIR TRANSPORT POLICE….

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/metro...-15915539/amp/

Anyone got a current address or phone number? Coroner might appreciate a heads up if so.
Mind you postal service has been a bit wobbly with Omicron fallout, so he might not have received the letter…

David Henderson has been refused permission to appeal his 18 month sentence by the Court of Appeal.

Inquest began today
 

In Bournemouth Town Hall. With a jury.

Wiki says:

"Since 1927, coroner's juries have rarely been used in England. Under the Coroners Act 1988, a jury is only required to be convened in cases where the death occurred in prison, police custody, or in circumstances which may affect public health or safety."


'Expected to last 5 weeks' says the report I read.


Not allowed by this site to post a link, however