5 related adults dead in Cessna 340 crash

Ryan F. said:
While that has certainly been true at times, it wasn't common in my experience of living, teaching, and flying in Central Florida from 1999 to 2015. Due to the nature of Florida being comprised of uneven swampy terrain, Usually low morning fog was patchy and localized. I could depart ORL or Sanford in very low IMC, be out of it by 100 feet AGL, and see all kinds of fields, roads, etc. Further, ISM could be totally socked in (surrounding waters) but MCO was good VFR, etc.
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I pulled up the historical METARs for the time of the accident for airports like LAL, GIF, MCO, ISM, even in the other direction up to OCF etc. They were all reporting similar foggy conditions at the time of the aircraft departure as BOW. Airports with RVR equipment were reporting between 1000 and 2000 feet of visibility, and below minimums for approaches.

I still don't think this tells us much about the accident sequence (unless the crash happened on an abort or a return)... but it does seem like he elected to depart into an environment where he didn't have an out for quite aways.
 
seand said:
I pulled up the historical METARs for the time of the accident for airports like LAL, GIF, MCO, ISM, even in the other direction up to OCF etc. They were all reporting similar foggy conditions at the time of the aircraft departure as BOW. Airports with RVR equipment were reporting between 1000 and 2000 feet of visibility, and below minimums for approaches.

I still don't think this tells us much about the accident sequence (unless the crash happened on an abort or a return)... but it does seem like he elected to depart into an environment where he didn't have an out for quite aways.
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This is my issue with the pilots decision. Even if it was a mechanical issue, his decision left him no options. Higher risk than seems reasonable for a joy ride.
 
All I know is, after enduring this thread for 4 days, I wish someone would just go ahead and kill me now.
 
oh my gosh. people are on the internet expressing their opinion, it's killing me! ;)
 
Or maybe it was a heart attack.
 
I think it spurned a stimulating discussion about the merits of departing IMC conditions, ADM, and personal minimums. I didn't see much discussion about the cause of the accident other than conjecture of it being Spatial D or runaway/stuck trim tabs
 
denverpilot said:
Let's recap and see where I felt @Cooter went off the rails.



Right here is the start of it. The assumption that the conditions were "near zero-vis" has STILL not been established by anything other than a Sheriff blathering on the news. Anyone posted the ACTUAL visibility conditions yet, even now? This still wasn't all that bad, but it's clear @Cooter has made up his mind about the pilot at this point, especially back at this post, when NOBODY had ANYTHING other than Sheriff Dumb***'s press conference to go on.



Sketchy... since we still don't have an accurate description of these "conditions" there's a huge assumption here. But I wasn't even mildly interested yet at this point... I could just see the assumption clearly.



We'll just save this one for later. I'm pretty sure you think I'm a j@ck@ss. But we'll move on...



And here's where I decided you had decided to put your assumption about the pilot surreptitiously into your leading question. EVERY flight is "unnecessary", but you made sure that word was in there whether consciously or perhaps even subconsciously were saying the pilot did something wrong. You're basing the question posed or the snarky "roll of the dice" portion of the question from ANY evidence, of which we have NONE on this accident. Zero. We know absolutely nothing about this pilot, his aircraft, or even a freaking official weather report in this thread yet. Does the damned airport have an AWOS when the Tower is closed? What did it say?

So... I pointed out the obvious, seeing if you'd notice your assumptions were leaking into your question: ALL INSTRUMENT FLIGHT is "Spacial D inducing".

The rest of the responses since then have been to see if you'll even admit that the pilot flying the airplane...

a) Certainly met the standards for his certificates, including at least a few Flight Reviews where mmm... CFIs have been mandated to discuss ADM for a long time...
b) That he also doesn't deserve any of your speculation that he made a poor decision. (Just because you like discussing ADM, doesn't mean it was the problem here.)
c) That in the aircraft type being discussed, not only would he have to meet FAA standards, his insurer almost certainly had even higher proficiency and training standards.

I get it that you LIKE FORMAL ADM, and wanted to apply it to this flight, but you have no solid verifiable evidence to hang your assumption of BAD ADM on.

I too, suspect the ceiling was VERY low/visibility was VERY poor, but it's a SUSPICION. I have heard there's a VIDEO being reviewed of the takeoff, where the aircraft CAN BE SEEN...
Hmm. That's not "0/0".

I haven't found the video in public yet. Information is from a photog I know personally who works for one of the news networks on-scene. Hasn't been mentioned in press conferences, but that's not uncommon. May not hear anything about it until the final report if someone who isn't a money-grubber or who doesn't think the press needs a copy of it for anything, shot the thing. I'm sure my photog's employer would love a copy of it, thus... why the info that it probably exists has spread to him.

I also, like you, disagree with the pilot's choice of acceptable risk FOR ME, but his risks are his to take as PIC. You may not like that, I may not like that, but they are. "Safety" for his passengers is a wonderful goal, but they got on board willingly. (Well, we'll assume the investigators don't find anyone chained to their seats, if that's a reasonable assumption.) And also, we all know, if he was the sort to take risks, I seriously doubt anyone on board, especially family, was unaware of that. Usually by now, if he was some sort of daredevil, some goody-two-shoes who didn't like him would already have begged to tell that story to a TV camera. They can't help themselves.

Your assumption this pilot had bad ADM without even so much as a hint of any sort of official weather report or qualified weather posted, even NOW... and we're days into this... is just unfounded. You did say you "have statistics"... so feel free to post one of THOSE accidents (where the investigation is actually COMPLETE, you know?) and rip on THAT dead pilot... you don't have the facts yet on THIS one, and the bodies are barely cold.

You following now? Want to "judge" dead pilots in a thread about a completed accident report? Fine by me. Judging one on absolutely nothing for evidence, while the family is still burying them, and not a shred of official evidence has been published... is unbelievably low. One might even say, "poor aeronautical message board decision making". Might crash into your own assumptions while lecturing others about not making any, and not admitting you have made any. (Which is why MY assumptions are documented above for your "judgement", from this j@ac@ss... enjoy.)
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This is a lot closer to how a discussion is supposed to look. Why couldn’t you have done that before and avoided all the nonsense?

Here is the problem, you seem unable to read post in the context in which they are written. You only read them as stand alone statements divorced from their context, which includes who and what I was responding to. I asked you to quote me, and you finally did. Now I have an idea about what you are taking issue with. I will attempt to re-introduce the context from which you removed them and explain what my real position is on the whole issue. That has not yet even been explained.

I have already addressed the spatial D thing ad nauseum. That seems to exceed your ability to grasp. It was a rhetorical question applied against an argument. But somehow you want to say that I am making the argument that I am pointing out is erroneous. For the last time. The comment was made that experience doesn’t matter even though experience was also suggested as the mitigating factor in cases like this. How can experience mitigate if it doesn’t matter. I started by saying I have a problem with his statement and I challenged it. He gave examples of experienced guys crashing in relatively easy conditions as an example that experience can’t remove the risk. My challenge was that his post made it sound like a roll of the dice, it can happen to anyone. IF, IF, IF what he’s saying is true, the only way to avoid the risk is to avoid spatial D inducing conditions. His logic drives that conclusion, not mine. So, if you want to challenge the logic of it, challenge his, not mine. I do believe experience matters and I do believe risks can be mitigate by that and other factors.

The first quote you quoted above addresses what is my unstated point all along, which I will try to get to. But first, I reject the idea that we know nothing about this flight. We know something about the weather, we know the type of aircraft, we know it is a Part 91 flight, we know his family was on-board. We also know it crashed. Not having all the information is not the same as having no information. There is a discussion that can be appropriately had about the factors we do know. It is a good discussion to have. Which is why I said this right below it.
Cooter said:
We don’t yet know all the facts in this case, but it is a fine opportunity to remind people of the dangers associated with such decisions.
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Taking off into low vis inherently carries more risk. The attitude towards it should be that it is potentially dangerous. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. But a discussion about how it can be done, and whether is should be done is a good thing. Which is why I said this:
Cooter said:
But there are things we do know about this flight and I think its fair to comment on them based on our own experiences.
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Saying we don't know whether the weather 1/4sm or not, so we can't comment is foolish in my opinion. You seem to think any discussion necessarily includes speculation, or is demeaning to the pilot. I totally disagree, and i don't think there is anything wrong with having a conversation about it. Your morals arent my morals. Just because you want to classify it as dancing on a grave, doesn't make it so. If your lack of discernment can't make the distinction between discussing an aviation related issue and dancing on a grave, that is your problem to deal with.

Due to the length of this and how much you addressed in your comment, I'll pause here and start a new post where I will respond to what probably set you off the most.
 
Rory said:

This is the elephant in the room that none of you want to address. Did they get on board knowing the risk? The risk that you acknowledge existed and that exceeded what you would tolerate? Or were they not entitled to know the risk?
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Is it a pink elephant on parade?
 
People are going to make their own decisions. Would I launch into 0/0 or even 100/100? Nope. No reason to take that risk for recreational travel when I can just wait. If that makes me a *****, a bad pilot, etc. whatever.

All I know is that we've gone in circles many times on this board about how dangerous GA is, how it's this stat or that stat, yet it seems like a lot of the accidents we discuss here that help form those dire stats are in conditions that just weren't necessary to be in. I know, it's a free country and it's technically legal. That's fine. Go launch into whatever you want. But there's definitely more risk involved for a pilot and his passengers when a recreational pilot is trying to fly in weather even professionals aren't flying in.

I think a push for a cultural change (not regulatory) that discourages such decisions is fine and shouldn't illicit such defensive responses.
 
Velocity173 said:
Based on the pilot’s experience, it might be a wise choice to depart. To say it’s unwise is to say that we should always wait for the weather to lift regardless of pilot experience.

In the Army, I had 0/0 authorization based on experience. Never had to do one real life but did plenty with a hood from a 3 ft hover and plenty in the sim. Difficult yes but not dangerous. While it helps to have a second pilot, I don’t recall ever needing their assistance in doing a 0/0 ITO. Dust / snow is just as difficult as a 0/0 takeoff due to fog and they do it on a regular basis in military helicopter operations.

So to say this pilot did something stupid is ridiculous and has little to do with ADM. We have no idea to his IFR experience. Doesn’t matter anyway, even the most experienced pilots have died just doing a simple IAP during actual instrument conditions. Doesn’t mean we should stop doing IAPs. Guy I graduated the Army instrument examiner course with died 3 months later...doing an IAP. No one is immune from spatial D.
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I see your point and agree. However, my position, and I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one, is that departing 0/0 or very, very low IFR with four other people on board who have put heir lives in your hands, all to go to lunch, is an unreasonable risk to take given that if something goes wrong in the first minute or so, it’s goodnight Irene for everyone on board. If this had happened to a medivac crew taking a heart attack victim to the hospital, hey, I get it. I get taking that risk. I don’t get taking this one.

And one thing that hasn’t been discussed - do you think his passengers were fully informed of the risks being taken with their lives? I doubt it.
 
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timwinters said:
All I know is, after enduring this thread for 4 days, I wish someone would just go ahead and kill me now.
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I was thinking the same thing about the much shorter thread posted on an aviation forum about small town NJ banning commuter drivers...:sleep:
 
Cooter said:
One thing I will not contribute to is the notion is that it is perfectly ok to take-off in near zero vis, on a morning when the only cost is likely a few hour delay. No we don’t know the full story yet. But the statistics are there, and my own experience informs me of the risks this guy took in deciding to takeoff in these conditions. People are shaped by many influences, one of which is the things they read on the internet.
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So here is where you seem to have the most problem. In this case, I can understand your disagreement but I haven't yet explained why I said it. That was what I was trying to get to with @Ryan F. before it went off the rails with him.

One of the biggest problems I see for aviation safety is the mixing of skill levels and training, and the confusion stemming from it. In any profession or sport, there are levels of skill, accomplishment, abilities and professionalism. Baseball is a good example. Major league guys are the top by a large margin. Someone who plays in a 40 and over league and is the top dog there, may be really good and have some abilities worth bragging on. But compared to the big league guys, he's not even in the same ballpark, literally.

Aviation is similar in some respects. Some guys get the best training, fly regularly, are doing what they are best at in life. They are the top in skill set, proficiency, and professionalism. Other guys have some extra money and have always loved aviation so they jump in and pour their time and energy into learning. But the standards for achievement, i.e. getting the ratings, is a relatively low bar when it comes to all the challenges they may encounter. On paper, one guy may look similar to another, but in reality they are in whole different spheres. The problem is that they may believe that they belong in another sphere than they are actually in.

I worry about that problem on places like POA. You have 20-30k hour airline pilots, fighter pilots, crop dusters, bush flyers, all the way down to student pilots. People with less experience will have a harder time appreciating the level of skill of the people higher up the list. It's just natural, and that's one reason experience is so important. We also have people who are really good in one area of aviation, that don't appreciate the level of skill required to operate in another area.

When the experts are discussing the ease with which they operate in certain conditions, it is easy for someone else who is far less capable to get the idea that it isn't that hard and they can do it. That is the context for my post I quoted above. It is careless, considering how many people read POA, to immediately dismiss the weather as a real challenge. Operating a Delta 757, while fully trained and current, is not the same as some guy who has an airplane that he pulls out of the hangar on weekends. The weekender's understanding about the nature of the threat can and most likely will be shaped by what he hears and reads from other pilots. That is a problem when people from so many different backgrounds and experience levels are thrown into the same mix.

I haven't completed my thought, but honestly I'm just tired of typing. I'll try to finish my point later.
 
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Clark1961 said:
Racist!
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I'll have you know that I have no pre-existing pink pachyderm prejudices. All pachyderms are equal, regardless of race, creed, or color. (Although the pink ones tend to get inebriated a little more often than the others.)

Elephants are almost just sort of like normal people!
 
Bonchie said:
People are going to make their own decisions. Would I launch into 0/0 or even 100/100? Nope. No reason to take that risk for recreational travel when I can just wait. If that makes me a *****, a bad pilot, etc. whatever.

All I know is that we've gone in circles many times on this board about how dangerous GA is, how it's this stat or that stat, yet it seems like a lot of the accidents we discuss here that help form those dire stats are in conditions that just weren't necessary to be in. I know, it's a free country and it's technically legal. That's fine. Go launch into whatever you want. But there's definitely more risk involved for a pilot and his passengers when a recreational pilot is trying to fly in weather even professionals aren't flying in.

I think a push for a cultural change (not regulatory) that discourages such decisions is fine and shouldn't illicit such defensive responses.
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You just said what I've been wanting to say all along, but somehow wasn't able to work it into one of my 20 or so post, yet.;)
 
mryan75 said:
...And one thing that hasn’t been discussed - do you think his passengers were fully informed of the risks being taken with their lives? I doubt it.
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So what would be your objective measure of "fully informed" in the context of getting into someone else's private conveyance - whether that be an airplane, an automobile, a boat, a motorcycle, or whatever?

How would I know that I have fully informed a potential passenger? Would that entail describing every possible thing that could go wrong and how that might harm them?

It's unlikely this was the first time his daughters were in a plane piloted by their father. Is there any amount of information that would have resulted in them declining to board?
 
mryan75 said:
is an unreasonable risk to take given that if something goes wrong in the first minute or so, it’s goodnight Irene for everyone on board.
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I'd be willing to bet the pilot didn't consider his situation to be hopeless if something went wrong. I'm all for talking through various scenarios and levels of risk that people consider to be acceptable or unacceptable, but I simply don't feel we have enough information about this guy's proficiency to come down on his ADM in this particular case. Is it higher risk? Of course. Was it dangerous or negligent? I just don't know.
 
Cooter said:
I haven't completed my thought, but honestly Im just tired of typing. I'll try to finish my point later.
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I think I know what you're trying to say, and you make a good point.
 
That's why I only fly with my immediate family, everybody else is likely to sue me no matter what. Good bad or indifferent, people have the same expectation of safety as they do when the board an airliner, even when you tell them otherwise. Though I have plenty of acquaintance's wives who do recognize the difference and refuse to support the activity. I refuse to get on a car they're driving, so we re even.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I'll have you know that I have no pre-existing pink pachyderm prejudices. All pachyderms are equal, regardless of race, creed, or color. (Although the pink ones tend to get inebriated a little more often than the others.)

Elephants are almost just sort of like normal people!
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You left out the part about how some of your best friends are pachyderms who self identify as pink. Beware, we know who you are and you will not, not be allowed to continue publicly denigrating pinks!
 
kayoh190 said:
I think I know what you're trying to say, and you make a good point.
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Thanks. I was going to connect my thoughts above to how the aviation community as a culture regards/discusses these challenges and risks that are often masked by proper training and proficiency. Also, how and why some of the aviation communities have historically created a culture against risk taking, and how we might now be undermining the safety benefits of that culture. I saw elements of that in this thread, and wanted to discuss it. But, the constant de-railment didn't allow it to get there. On reflection, a separate thread would have probably been more appropriate. Emotions are high in tragic accidents like this, and understandably so.
 
mryan75 said:
I see your point and agree. However, my position, and I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one, is that departing 0/0 or very, very low IFR with four other people on board who have put heir lives in your hands, all to go to lunch, is an unreasonable risk to take given that if something goes wrong in the first minute or so, it’s goodnight Irene for everyone on board. If this had happened to a medivac crew taking a heart attack victim to the hospital, hey, I get it. I get taking that risk. I don’t get taking this one.

And one thing that hasn’t been discussed - do you think his passengers were fully informed of the risks being taken with their lives? I doubt it.
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The missing thought here is that in that specific aircraft under specific loading conditions (and five on board is probably there, not knowing the size of his passengers or his fuel load), it’s “goodnight Irene” even in CAVU conditions if certain things happen below a safe return altitude on one engine. Even at sea level.

FAA made that decision about light twins long long ago. The pilot can do things to remove that risk, but VFR/IFR conditions only add to the complication level or add additional risk if the risk isn’t already “100% through the fence crash if the engine quits below X”.

We have no insights to the pilot’s ADM in the matter. Or his performance with what he had available to him. Yet. His ADM may very well have included that an engine failure on takeoff would mean a very bad day. It may have included knowing he couldn’t climb on a single engine. He may have simply not maintained directional control in an aircraft likely outfitted with multiple instruments capable of giving directional information.

*** He may have had a completely different non-survivable failure in ANY weather conditions. ***

May not have mattered at all that he made a decision not to have an “out” to land for a ways. He was operating a twin after all, and not a Part 23 twin.

We simply don’t know yet. We even now have someone who’s posted that local RVRs were 1000+. That’s not 0/0 and many people do purchase twins and operate them in such conditions because they’re twins.

One twin owner here has shared in the past that he completely rewrote the performance tables for his twin such that he modifies instrument procedures to remove climb out risk on missed approaches by limiting the missed altitude to the higher of either the approach plate OR his climb performance table.

Nothing wrong with that. Good ADM even, if you ask me, but not required or regularly done. Most training flights here in summertime in most non-turbo twins, even lightly loaded, are a guaranteed crash from altitude X to altitude Y. Pilot gets to fill in the blanks and take their chances. In the aircraft I trained on, the gear takes 13 seconds to transit.

One can build numbers to show the altitudes from which a hard landing and a crash through the fence off the end of the runway is guaranteed and above that altitude the gear can be fully retracted )assuming the remaining engine is producing full power and the failed engine is feathered... ) without hitting the ground.

Whether this pilot ran his numbers or knew them, and accounted for them, or flew the aircraft appropriately to maximize the time not in that risk state in the departure profile, is completely unknown. Weather only complicates or, but the risk is still “100% crash” for a few seconds.

Whether pilots fall into the trap of thinking two engines is “safer” or aren’t trained that their twin has this limitation, is pretty far fetched by the time you’re flying what he was flying.

His ADM may very well have been “This is a guaranteed risk of crash that I’ve been willing to accept in this aircraft before.” Sucks, but we all can’t afford Part 23 certified twins.

If he thought he couldn’t handle a failure and keep the wings level and the runway below him, yeah... no-go. For me personally? Also no-go for the weather and workload. But it’s literally left up to his judgement as PIC in that aircraft knowing it has at least a small portion of the takeoff where a crash or hard landing is not just possible, it’s guaranteed. 100% risk.

FAA is fine with this. It’s the PICs call. If they choose to stuff the airplane full, the aircraft is not certified to climb. This is covered and repeatedly re-covered in multi training. Welcome to light twins, 101.

Without his logbook it’s pure speculation as to whether or not he made the ADM call that a problem on departure was a “100% crash” scenario. Or whether he felt he had no problem with the low ceiling.

All the discussion about whether or not the passengers given all the information about the flight would get off? Most passengers in light twins would get off if told of the reality of takeoff failures. Like I said, FAA approved that decision as part of the nature of these aircraft the day they slapped a certification on them.

The insurance companies don’t like it. They add a lot of things the FAA doesn’t require to most twin policies for twins that size, and even made FAA change the solo requirements for multis such that an insurable pilot (the instructor) can be on board pretending not to be there, while the student “solos” in their long XC. Obviously the FAA wanted true solo, and the insurers said no, we won’t insure that aircraft flown solo with a non PIC rated pilot.

No doubt flying that aircraft in low IFR is a challenge. No doubt that airplane has limitations built into its design that make it no better and maybe worse than a single from liftoff to a certain altitude. All stipulated.

The problem is in the assumption that the pilot didn’t know these things. I suspect he did. I suspect he’s accepted that risk before. With passengers on board. It’s built into the nature of light twins.

Very few multi pilots are going to brief their passengers that a loss of thrust on one engine below Y altitude, is a guaranteed ride through the fence and into whatever obstacles are behind it, and that’s the best option vs a Vmc roll a mile away.
 
Ryanb said:
It won’t fix the problem, unfortunately. There’s a big difference between being tested over something and facing the situation in a practice sense.
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This. The testing is all about knowing the correct FAA terminology and methodology as well as memorizing various acronyms. I used to cringe every time I got to the ADM or CRM units doing computer based recurrent. I cringed again when I took the CFI renewal course.
 
Bonchie said:
Would I launch into 0/0 or even 100/100? Nope. No reason to take that risk for recreational travel when I can just wait. If that makes me a *****, a bad pilot, etc. whatever.
...
I think a push for a cultural change (not regulatory) that discourages such decisions is fine and shouldn't illicit such defensive responses.
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Agreed.

There’s a cliche about pilots who would rather be dead than embarrassed. A bit overstated (but maybe not much!), but that’s the culture and attitude we have to change. It has to become embarrassing and shameful within the aviation community for a pilot to accept risks that are inappropriate for the circumstance.
 
I disagree with the notion of giving the passengers the choice. They don't know enough to make the choice. The full weight of a departure decision falls on the PIC. It's a terrible burden, but we should all consider it carefully before loading passengers.
 
Half Fast said:
Agreed.

There’s a cliche about pilots who would rather be dead than embarrassed. A bit overstated (but maybe not much!), but that’s the culture and attitude we have to change. It has to become embarrassing and shameful within the aviation community for a pilot to accept risks that are inappropriate for the circumstance.
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What’s the limit then? Guaranteed crash if certain failures happen? Because aviation is full of scenarios, flown every day that meet that criteria, and the regs allow for that PIC decision.

We’ve talked about numerous scenarios where this is true, before. IFR (even on top in VMC) over widespread bases that won’t allow for a successful approach for a couple hundred miles, for example.

Some people won’t do it, and will re-route their plan to avoid it, others do it regularly because they accept the risk. With passengers, even. Not informing them. Is it wrong? Is it a “culture” that “needs” to change?

I can’t answer that for anyone else. I can discuss it with them and let them make their own decisions as PIC. FAA says they can, too.
 
Ryan F. said:
The fact is, departing in low IMC in a plane as capable as a Cessna 340 simply does not, in and of itself, suggest a given pilot's ADM and risk management are suspect. With more data, perhaps we will decide that in fact, it wasn't wise for this unfortunate man to have felt that this was within his wheelhouse of acceptable risk and commensurate airmanship. But maybe the data will also show that it had nothing to do with the weather, that it was a mechanical issue, medical, or who knows what. Of course low weather will always increase the risk... but we still drive automobiles, don't we?
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Ryan, you’ve forgotten more about flying than I will likely ever know. I respect your knowledge and opinions tremendously. But to me these things are situational. Regarding the first line in the quote above, when we’re talking about taking four loved ones for lunch and knowing that if you wait an hour or two it will be severe clear, I just have to disagree. Given what they were doing, the entire weather picture (including the doubtless vast improvement within a relatively short period of time) and what the consequences would likely be of something going wrong in that two minutes from firewalling the throttles until you get in the clear, I’m sorry, but it just wasn’t worth the risk. In nearly every scenario we could come up with, and there are plenty, having clear weather significantly improves your options and likelihood of a successful save versus the weather he attempted to takeoff in.

And I say his with all the respect in the world for you as an aviator. I just have to disagree here.
 
Salty said:
I disagree with the notion of giving the passengers the choice. They don't know enough to make the choice. The full weight of a departure decision falls on the PIC. It's a terrible burden, but we should all consider it carefully before loading passengers.
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Why? People don’t have a right to know the risks they are facing just because you’re the PIC? That’s just a bizarre argument.
 
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