I’m impressed with the level of information and assertiveness that the controllers express.
His mindset prevented him from making good decisions, the video seems to suggest.
Re stats – there was a study I remember that compared accident causes between IR rated pilots and non-IR rated pilots, both VMC and IMC, and the loss of control cause of accident was about half of that for IR pilots vs. Non IR-pilots.
The human factors are just bizzare.
We had a thread on something similar a while ago…
But I think most of us are capable of doing something stupid – if not quite that stupid.
But then we don’t know what his flight conditions actually were. Not that 300ft AGL is not desperate…
That has to be the most ridiculous example I have seen. Despite constant warnings even relayed through an airliner he carried on
Difficult to collect stats from dead people with no FDR 
Cobalt wrote:
I think the accident patterns for instrument capable pilots and non-instrument cpable pilots differ – the instrument capable pilot is less likely to lose control outright, and hence the typical accident is CFIT, while the non- instrument pilot is more likely to come to grief bu losing control maneuvering.
Is that pure speculation, or do you have some statistics to back it up with?
Flying low, below cloud, I need 500 feet between me and the cloud. Cloud base is not flat. Unless low level visibility is good, you cannot see what conditions ahead are. I find the VMC limits incomprehensible in practice. See a white house against brown moorland, or lower cloud against cloud, at three nautical miles?
Flying in a narrow valley or canyon, in good visibility, there’s little opportunity to look inside. In poor vis there’d be none.
I’ve once flown into the sort of visibility he had, and continued flying VMC – along a long beach, which I had often walked, where I could land at any time. I had told Lossie Radar I was going to land on it, but came out into clearer air, and got home.
I think the accident patterns for instrument capable pilots and non-instrument cpable pilots differ – the instrument capable pilot is less likely to lose control outright, and hence the typical accident is CFIT, while the non- instrument pilot is more likely to come to grief bu losing control maneuvering.
Yes quite a few IR holders have killed themselves flying VFR. It’s a frequent topic as to why the hell they did that.
One big reason avoidance of the 2000kg+ IFR charges. That IMHO led directly to the death of a former “hangar mate” of mine, N2195B, and his family, and probably many others flying piston twins. N2195B could have had the 1999kg STC but didn’t.
Another is that flying low down, say 2000ft, can help to get you through really nasty wx, whereas flying through it high up (say FL100+, as is usually necessary to get a flight plan accepted by Eurocontrol) is likely to be much more hazardous (icing, and generally serious convective wx in IMC is not a great idea)
Another one is unwillingness to use oxygen. Maybe 50% of IR holders don’t use oxygen, so they stick to FL100 or so around Europe. That puts you right into IMC if there is any wx around. And a lot of Eurocontrol routes need oxygen e.g. around the Nice (France) area.
However I am sure all such cases were not VMC at the time of the crash, despite the reports saying ritually that VMC conditions prevailed.
A video worth seeing
