@Alpha_Floor: Yes, this goes a bit off topic, but not too much. You are right, besides from ramp checks you may get away with quite some things for quite some time. Btw, your description of flying NVFR sound like from before SERA, when Night-VFR was Lite-IFR and been treated the same as the airliners. This is no longer true and some countries even establish Night-FIS, instead of sending you to RADAR. You may remember the D-CMMM incident: ARC expired in 2005, registration was pulled and rendered invalid in 2009, aircraft not in maintenance for years, captain with no valid license, only valid license on board copilot and the Learjet crashed 2012 at Bornholm after filing IFR and flying for years – not even the aircraft registration is checked for currency when filing? But, more regulation will not fetch these incidents, as they are caused by the once giving a sh** to regs anyways.
Snoopy wrote:
Agree. We have more than enough regs already. More education and a pan european database of accident reports in standardized format would be a start!
Is there no way to get a copy of the Flight Plan ?
Being Night VFR and Intl Ops, there obviously was one filed.
Would be interesting to see how it was filed.
Michael wrote:
Is there no way to get a copy of the Flight Plan ?Being Night VFR and Intl Ops, there obviously was one filed.
Would be interesting to see how it was filed.
From personal experience, controllers don’t care what ratings you have if you are clear that you are PPL+assistance, they will not give you an IFR clearance and will always ask you to remain VMC
Probably someone knows better, but I don’t think ATC will question your PIC choices: if you request class A airspace or wants vectors to an ILS if you like, they will give it, the only thing they will insist on for you is to “remain VMC” (up to you), if you insist to land on an ILS on a 200ft CB with a PPL they will do their best to help but they will explain the risks and it is your call (they will just tell you “own your terrain clearance”)
They will also give a lot of sensible suggestions that you may never think of under stress, at the end if you survive (which is what matters after all) you will have to go to the tower to explain and fill MORs and get a more than enough learning experience: just be frank with ATC it will make your life if you still have one easier, never try on your own irrespective of your skills, the reward is free cup of tea…
I am sure in the scenario in question, they probably asked the pilot in question if he needed assistance if the pilot voice tone or flight path looked fishy
Continuing your thought I am however certain that those in the decision making did not perceive this would be a high-risk flight (as we all know VFR at night (1) at low level (2) in IMC (3) in icing conditions (4) in the middle of the Channel (5) and in winter (6) is) . No fewer than SIX risk factors stacked are at least four or five too many for most of us. Add SEP and high-value pax and it simply does not add up.
Perhaps the decision maker thought this would be an IFR flight with the other pilot? Or perhaps a day flight and then they got delayed? Either way they did not have this perception.
Antonio wrote:
Continuing your thought I am however certain that those in the decision making did not perceive this would be a high-risk flight (as we all know VFR at night (1) at low level (2) in IMC (3) in icing conditions (4) in the middle of the Channel (5) and in winter (6) is) . No fewer than SIX risk factors stacked are at least four or five too many for most of us. Add SEP
I read elsewhere on the forum that one pilot recently flew his …. unpressurised … non FIKI …… Mooney from Germany to the tip of South America, then up the west coast of South America, right across the USA and back to Germany … maybe 15000 NM without incident
Whats the difference between this and the flight we are discussing?
I would say … ability … good judgement ….. good planning …. and knowing ones capabilities and that of the aircraft
I’ve never been in a Malibu. Do they have any form of electronic recording that might give a clue to what happened, if the aircraft is ever recovered?
No – it is just a private plane so no CVR and no FDR. A G1000 or similar does record data, however. And passengers often shoot videos, etc.
Is there no way to get a copy of the Flight Plan ?
Of course, if you work in ATC, but you have signed a confidentiality contract. The ATCOs who are on EuroGA will have already got the details, I am sure. UK ATCOs have signed the Official Secrets Atc which is pretty severe so they usually say nothing at all.
Regarding the GRAMET, these charts are very unreliable especially for cloud vertical extent depiction. They are good when they happen to be right and the rest of the time they are useless or nearly so. If someone has the exact time of the crash, I may have the MSLP in an archive, and the tafs and metars can be found easily. The Univ of Wyoming skew-t data (see notes here) can also be found for 0000z and 1200z for various places in Europe and that gives you exact vertical conditions for the sampled spot.
I have deleted one post and edited another because the “organiser” is probably not dead. So be careful with allegations in that direction.
Peter wrote:
Pitot heat is a 100% check before every flight. One could do the same with a hot prop, presumably?
Mine is forbidden to be turned on with prop not turning. So the only check I have is, engine running, looking at the amp meter variation. I have a separate amp meter just for the prop deice.
Sure is lots of speculation going on here, on very shaky evidence. The media is such a mix of factual, erroneous, and non-aviation reporting that it is really tough to know what the correct details are.
I’ve read a report that the pilot’s name is David Ibbotson (60), an engineer and “hobby pilot” from Crowle, North Lincolnshire, and that he mentioned the Nantes to Cardiff flight on his Facebook account (now deleted). He is also supposed to have written to a friend after landing in Nantes that the flight there wasn’t too bad, but he was a bit rusty with his ILS approaches, to which his friend replied that he didn’t believe it. Certainly sounds as if he was IR rated, contrary to all the discussion above based on the assumption that he wasn’t.
