Not sure “attempting unlawfully to discharge a passenger” applies in this case. Unless dumping them at the bottom of the Channel counts.
That’s impressive, especially for somebody who wasn’t even near the plane
it’s unprecedented: charge on “endangering aircraft” and “he was not even in aircraft”
Was there any case in GA or airliners? all I come across were stories of drunk passengers in low-cost diverting 200 people away from destination with hotels & logistics but in all cases, they were in the aircraft !
Hopefully, it will clean up the grey chartering around…
It will be of interest to any “operator” who lets others fly the plane for “legal charter” like Wingly.
If I was such, I would immediately instigate full reporting (to me) of who, where from, where to, and how much paid.
Never mind illegal charter… but Wingly can be used to get very close to that, and well past that with informal payment. And you can be sure that if there is a crash, the victim or his family will disclose any informal arrangements, because they will get a bigger payout.
Interesting new? regulation letter mentioned by OP in new thread on P****E, re. owner onboard Private aircraft.
Never mind illegal charter… but Wingly can be used to get very close to that, and well past that with informal payment. And you can be sure that if there is a crash, the victim or his family will disclose any informal arrangements, because they will get a bigger payout.
I believe the problem here was this guy took money to make a profit by connecting the passenger with the pilot / airplane.
Wingly works differently, usually. An operator / owner of a plane charters it out to a pilot, who then does whatever he wants, and offers cost sharing flights to strangers. It’s still a can of worms for the operator / owner if anything happens especially if the operator / owner is an individual and not a ltd.
Snoopy wrote:
I believe the problem here was this guy took money to make a profit by connecting the passenger with the pilot / airplane.
Not really or at least on its own.
i.e. he could have be running an illegal operation but if had not been reckless then there would be no prosecution. (on the main charge) The key point was that he was found reckless.
It is certainly reasonable that he might have been held to higher standard because he was running a “business” and that may have swayed the jury. But I could see a private “operator” could be successfully prosecuted if they were sufficient reckless. For e..g knowingly allowed a wingly pilot to do something he or she was not qualified to do.
If you read the instructions to the jury the route to guilty does NOT include these flights being unauthorised. (illegal charter)
Wingly works differently, usually. An operator / owner of a plane charters it out to a pilot, who then does whatever he wants, and offers cost sharing flights to strangers. It’s still a can of worms for the operator / owner if anything happens especially if the operator / owner is an individual and not a ltd.
Sure, but an owner/operator renting (or lending) a plane to somebody who does a “Wingly plus extras” flight which then goes badly wrong (or even doesn’t go wrong, but some nearby AOC holder complains to the CAA, and they meet the flight post-landing and interview the passengers, which has actually happened in suspected cases) will be on the hook for it, if the CAA can show that he knew (beyond reasonable doubt) that the pilot will be “doing extras”. This case will be good precedent for that.
In this case it was shown BRD that Henderson knew what was going on, but if there has been no written comms, he would have probably got off.
If Henderson had some really basic tech/IT knowledge, he would have known what has been in the public domain for some 20+ years: all SMS messages are stored, essentially for ever (certainly years) with both numbers, the SIM ID, the IMEI, and the tower signal levels which enable approximate triangulation. Even the most “simple criminals” know this nowadays, which is why they use burner phones.
Had he used whatsapp or telegram he would have probably got off – assuming Ibbotson’s phone was never found (like Ibbotson himself), and assuming he didn’t send the other incriminating messages to other people who would have definitely not deleted them because doing so would have implicated them. If I send you a message saying I stole a car today, will you delete it? Probably not 
They also potentially had other stuff on him. For example he is 67, and the max age for single pilot charter is 60, so any charters he (not Ibbotson) flew in the previous 7 years would have been illegal also.
Some of the judge’s comments were – to me – amusing, like the one about an AOC aircraft being subjected to a much more rigorous maintenance regime. What a total laugh, looking at some of the total wreckage used for piston AOC work 
Well, he was appropriately briefed and probably had no personal experience of the piston GA scene. In the past, many years ago, a judge with a PPL was disqualified from hearing a GA case, although it was recently claimed by a magistrate that this is not true [anymore]. If I was the judge, I would just got on with the job and got it done; I would not be able to make such a comment with a straight face.
I still don’t get why the wreckage wasn’t retrieved. A really good case for a safety enhancing investigation and possibly a fleet-wide periodic inspection AD on the exhaust system. This court case grounded an operation on which the wheels came right off, but a CPL/IR flying an AOC piston twin could have met the same end. Can the Janitrol heaters make CO?
But I could see a private “operator” could be successfully prosecuted if they were sufficient reckless. For e..g knowingly allowed a wingly pilot to do something he or she was not qualified to do.
Exactly.
BeechBaby wrote:
Whilst SOPS are standardised, crashes occur every day because SOPS are followed, and crashes happen because SOPS are not. Many accidents DO NOT happen because a pilot thinks out of the box.
Totally true. As discussed in this EuroGA Tuesday evening talk safety is mostly in between the involved people’s ears.
SOPS, regulations and large aircraft, however are more and more designed in such a way that no matter how void that inter-ear space is, things will still work out safely…that is until something that nobody ever thought of happens, which is increasingly rare.
In such rare cases the difference lies in how much smartness and ingenuity there is in that same inter-ear space for those involved, like the BA38 accident or the QA32 incident, or, on the contrary, AF447 or AF7512!
It is a balancing act between persons, (management-) systems and machines , which, for a large aircraft, especially in EASA environment, is not very different within or outside an AOC operation in the great majority of circumstances. The remaining cheeseholes are best plugged if we still value such space.
However, for light GA, the regulatory environment does tilt the balance heavily: an AOC operation will make the operation safer most of the time, mainly due to pilot training and dual pilot operation, as well as flight planning requirements, but it will also triple the cost in the process. Of course an AOC operation would never allow the Sala flight not only because of the plane type, but also no night VFR, no low altitude over the sea at night on a non-SAR mission etc…it simply forbids such operation as discussed be4.
OTOH, and perhaps ironically, trying to apply similar regulatory concepts to private light GA only worsens matters, as such , by its own nature, non-routine operation, is much more reliant on the inter-ear space of the pilot than AOC operations. Developing such space through additional currency and training sadly has to be been balanced against the increasing weight of EU regulation since 2003. Yes the trend has now been reverted but we will take some time to see results.
In terms of human lives, it does not help much that your light GA operation is legal or insured if the inter-ear space of the pilot is not properly exercised. Coming down to our case, _my take as to whether these items had any factual impact on the outcome of the flight:
Are you sure the flights did not have the required authorisation or permission
NO IMPACT
Are you sure the pilot David Ibbotson did not have a commercial pilots licenceNO IMPACT
Are you sure David Ibbotson’s rating to fly N264DB expired in November 2018NO IMPACT
Are you sure bad weather was forecast and David Ibbotson was not confident to fly in such weatherYES, IMPACT
2. Are you sure that the relevant matters individually or in combination gave rise to a real risk to N264DB which could not be safely ignored.YES, but only for the latter
My take is that those “NO IMPACT” items would be more relevant for an AOC operation than for a private light GA. Not because of themselves, but because any of those on an AOC operation is a clear indication that the whole operation is dodgy.
OTOH on a private light GA operation, having a dual crew with a CPL with all licenses and ratings and bells and whistles flying your PA-46 is no guarantee that things will not go wrong.
Yes; exactly.
The problem is that the CAA obviously wanted to bust an illegal charter operation. They could have probably busted it in lots of ways. For example if they got evidence of charter flown by Henderson anytime in the last 7 years, they could have got him simply for being over 60. But they didn’t want a repeat of the Shoreham crash acquittal (which was totally unexpected, to put it mildly, and must have chucked a hand grenade into CAA House), plus they wanted to “make it stick” (a UK police phrase, for sure mirrored in police language everywhere), so they worked out what is very likely to produce a conviction.
The bits which actually caused the accident could not produce a conviction because the evidence could not be collected:
Also, going after a maintenance company is very hard for the CAA, because these companies are CAA licensed and pay nice fees for the license, so the CAA would be in the spotlight for licensing them. Past record here shows the absolute last thing the CAA wants to do is bust a maintenance company, even in the most obvious cases. But even then, you can get an exhaust failure in between services. A pilot who posts here got such and IIRC he landed very fast (a pipe came right off on a DA40).
Peter wrote:
going after a maintenance company is very hard for the CAA
Well, even if hey wanted to, and even if there was some shoddy maintenance, it will be close to impossible to link it to the accident with the evidence at the bottom of the sea…
