At 5,000’ you’re likely to encounter downdrafts that’ll make you hit things well below 4,000’.
At 5000ft amsl you don’t hit anything in UK (including Mt Nevis and Snowdonia), at 3000ft amsl you don’t hit anything in UKSE
The only things you hit are controlled and dangerous airspaces 
“in UK, the land is flat”
England? Southern England? UK?
a different situation from this accident but I was indeed taught (in the last few years) to climb to MSA and declare if caught below between weather and terrain, regardless of airspace
I was taught the same 
That usually works but usually in places where it matter you are bellow radio, radio, airspace…in UK, the land is flat
The climb to MSA in IMC is always safe (those cruising in controlled airspace don’t fly at MSA, it’s only used for emergencies but it matters near CTR with aircraft climbing or descending), in most places at MSA outside SID or IAP the radio and the radar don’t work…in UK, however, if you are at MSA in CAS without clearance you will get busted for airspace infringement (unless you set 7700), CAIT will flag it and MOR get sent…you will get blamed for bad planning rather than messy airspace design
What you describe is relevant when you fly IMC near BNN with Elstree under Luton CTA or near BPK with North Weald with Stansted CTA, I suppose with departures & arrival that climb may trigger something in radars or cockpits
Sure, but it‘s easy to „teach“ that, because if the pilot then later infringes, it will not be the license of the instructor at stake, but of the pilot. So that doesn‘t mean much. In the end, the pilot will always still have to make the decision on whether to „give up“ and infringe, or whether to try to save the situation without committing any infringement.
That said, while the UK way of dealing with infringements is severe, I am still not sure that if someone climbed into class A somewhere over the Channel deliberately, after declaring an emergency, due to being boxed in by weather, would really face any licensing action. For sure not if he holds a non UK license, but possibly not even if holding a UK license.
Anyway, the impression I got was that the pilot in this case was way too low on the proficiency latter to to be able to make all these considerations anyway.
@Ibra – a different situation from this accident but I was indeed taught (in the last few years) to climb to MSA and declare if caught below between weather and terrain, regardless of airspace. This was if you’d failed to or couldn’t make a 180 which was taught as option A.
This however, from instructors who had or currently flew GA from A to B, not just within 30nm of the training org.
that’s better than being dead
Indeed, but psychology being what it is, they carried on.
I would have carried on too (on a “VFR” flight) but I would not have expected to lose control of the aircraft. They did. Once you lose control, things happen very fast – disintegration within tens of seconds and probably sooner.
I know of only one case where a VFR pilot returning from The Channel Islands who was getting into trouble in IMC at the limit of 5,5000’, as a last resort, requested whether he could climb into Class A.
Not the official advice though? you have to “remain outside controlled airspace” (ideally outside clouds with 180 deg turn or in clouds with IMCR/IR)
AFAIK, UK ATC or FIS don’t even instruct “to remain VMC” even when you say you are in clouds…
Class Alpha ATC don’t handle emergencies OCAS, only D&D offer that kind of service and you likely need to be mayday (even panpan is not enough)
I would love to hear regulators, controllers and instructors saying to someone with PPL “it’s fine to climb above clouds into airspace if you are caught”
Peter wrote:
I think the pilot would have been punished by some “training with a CFI”, as a minimum, and possibly having to re-do a PPL skills test to drive the point home.
On the other hand, that’s better than being dead. And given the low currency of the pilots, they could aways jack it in instead of taking the punishment.
There are always better options: turn around is one, and if that’s no longer possible, then busting airspace (preferably calling mayday first) is a lot more prefereable than flying through a convective cloud in a non-deiced aircraft with non-IR pilots.
No Class A as VFR or IFR.
Unless you hold an IR, in which you could go IFR (but in reality would probably not get a “popup” IFR clearance before you exhausted your fuel; the UK is not set up for those in the LTMA) it has to be a mayday declaration.
In this case the CAA would argue that you should have done a 180. I think the pilot would have been punished by some “training with a CFI”, as a minimum, and possibly having to re-do a PPL skills test to drive the point home.
