Blackpool 3/2/07
 

My name is David Walker, I am the father of Andrew Walker, who was killed in the air accident in Blackpool, on 3rd February 2007.

The Coroners Court will re open on the 3rd June 2008, at the Town Hall Blackpool.

Good luck with it. I've heard some of the details of the case and I really hope that you and your family receive the justice you are entitled to. I'll be keeping everything crossed for you.

Likewise, David. The very, very, best of luck to you. Don't stop pushing towards your goal. I'm most impressed by what I've heard of your actions so far.

Any internet links to "actions so far?"

Probably not and I would say it is something not best dicussed in detail on here, although you can read the AAIB report regarding the tragic accident of G-BBBK on their website.

Mr Walker I truly hope you get the closure/justice you seek, good luck.

Mr Walker

I understand your grief and sympathise completely. I also knew Roy, who died with your son.

I'm not so sure this public site is somewhere you may want to attempt to try and highlight your mission.

The AAIB report is quite codemning in regards to some poor judgements and operations outside of the priviledges of the licenses held by those involved.

I hope you are able to accept some realities and mourn successfully rather than become some Al Fayed character.

Both Andy and Roy are sadly missed. There is not one father who does not understand your loss.

Respectfully, silverhawk, there is a galaxy of difference between Al Fayed and this grieving father.

Mr David Walker has certainly achieved a degree of progress in the right directions, sometimes by being very public. I think his judgement in this regard is well above average. Without doubt, it compares extremely favourably with the judgement displayed by certain other parties.

There is quite a lot not being said here.

The AAIB claim is that Mr Walker was the commander of the aircraft, thus full responsibility for the conduct of the flight would lie with him. Is the 'campaign' to change this role to the other person on board ??

The question i guess is whether in a chain of faults the first one (asking a non current pilot to..... etc) should always be the major one and the secondary being only secondary in the true gist only....

If we steer away from the assumption of P1 being P1 we will all end up in grey mist..... It is a bitterly hard lesson for all of us.

This has nothing to do with the liability of people pressing/suggesting other people to do things they should not do.... That is in my view horrible and seems to have happened here. Those people too should learn a lesson but has nothing to do with P1 being P1

The bitterly hard lesson is of course in your role as P1 (in taking P1 seat you suggest you are taking the p1 role) you always have to assume you ARE p1 and therefore the buck stops with you, even if you get yourself a safety pilot.

The only exception in my view is a training flight with an instructor which commences with a briefing depicting the object of the training flight and ending with a debrief.

Any other flight P1 is P1

Loosing a family member or a good friend is (too) hard, and my condoleances to those involved. I hope those involved will be able to live with the outcome of the coroners court, however it ends up and will be able to pick up their lives.

I would have thought that the most experienced and qualified pilot would always be P1 assuming they are both sitting at the controls.

huh?

surely you must be joking!

On a private flight, absolutely not. Leaving out the special case of instruction, at any point in time there is one commander and everyone else is a passenger, whether or not they have a pilots licence, regardless of any flying experience they might have and regardless of whether their seat happens to be fitted with flying controls.

Mark

having control is taught from lesson 1. Even under instruction, the student will have control unless the instructor TAKES control after saying : I have control!

All pilots are taught to be clear about who has control at any time during the flight.

Any sensible pilot would also do the same towards who is P1 prior to the flight. It is called human resources management and is as important as choosing the correct runway. Any pilot (in any control seat) participating in any flight whilst leaving the P1 issue unclear is actively encouraging a dangerous situation.

Even when pilots "share activities of a flight (one the controls, the other navigation or radio), the fact that P1 relinquished radio or nav to a secondary pilot does not relieve him from total responsibility as P1

Pprune Radar

Pure speculation on my part: I think it unlikely the "campaign", as you put it is in the direction you suggest. My guess would be that it is directed at the flying school and at the person at the flying school who, according to the AAIB report, persuaded the pilot, who initially refused the flight, to fly the route, in spite of being outside of the 90 day currency requirement. He did so with passengers, on the outbound flight, and one passenger on the fatal return leg. Used as part of this persuasion was the suggestion to fly with a more experienced NPPL holder in the right seat, according to the report. However the report does not go as far as to suggest that the rules were intended to be ignored, or that anyone suggested that they should be, merely that the facts are that they were ingnored, and that during the communication about the flight that it was something which was overlooked. This is not the only fact of course discussed in the report, but it is clear that without the involvement of the person from the school, the pilot had refused the flight.

Ominously the flying school representative is very careful how he described his role in the incident to the AAIB, which is perhaps where the family feel they need to pursue justice.

I make no comment or speculation on the rights or wrongs of what went ultimately wrong, as that is for the court and the AAIB with full knowledge of all facts available. However I would reiterate condolences to the family of those involved in this tragedy.

Maybe this should be on a new thread.
I think it would be rather difficult to persuade the CAA and the court that my 500hrs and private ticket allowed the ATPL with 10k hrs sitting next to me to walk free because he was a "passenger"

Then you don't understand what being designated as Commander of an aircraft actually means. The CAA are very clear what it means, and that is that there is only one Commander of the aircraft at any given time.

It is not based on any seniority or experience gradient, it is based on who accepted responsibility before the flight to be the Commander. It is of course possible to share a flight and be Commander for a portion of it, but you would need to agree this between the pilots involved beforehand, and also complete any pre flight documentation to show this to be the case. In the abscence of that, whoever signed for the aircraft is the legal Commander. (This is in a flying club environment with a PPL flying the aircraft). The legal Commander has responsibilities placed upon him or her for the safe conduct of the flight, which can include refusing to fly if unhappy with anything.

Of course, whether this is actually explained to everyone who gets their licence is another thing, but alas ignorance of the law is never seen as a defence.

As I stated before, the decision as to who IS P1, is a critical one, and all of us PPLs should make it an item on our pre flight check list.

I for one have experienced in a mild way the complications of this when many moons ago i flew (P1) with a friend (P2) who wanted to check out his new handheld GPS and took on the "responsibility" for the navigation, getting us into Luton airpsace without clearance..... I was P1 and got (rightly) the flack from the controller over the phone (no prosecution).

I knew i was P1 and didn t check P2's actions... My fault.

Then you don't understand what being designated as Commander of an aircraft actually means.

Actually I do.

Yes there can be only one commander at any one time. However I suspect the more senior might find themselves culpable if they did not assume control when faced with a breach of the law.

Rubbish. The commander is the commander full stop. Any passenger is just a passenger pure and simple. Christ, I would never be able to fly as a passenger with another pilot for fear of being prosecuted for their mistakes. When I am teaching I am responsible, when I am a passenger I am there to look out the window.

Reminds me of the Instructor who tried to convince everyone he flew with that he must be P1 because he is an Instructor. God complex......

You suspect wrongly. Indeed, I would suggest that anyone 'assuming control' of an aeroplane, taking control away from its commander without permission, would be in quite serious trouble with the law...