Ernie,
Still got a license or did they pull your ticket (like me) for some health or other reason. If you are going down to the island next month maybe I will see you there. KGB :p

Good discussion (that is what this board is about) and good points made by all. The topic started with the impending law suit and some expressing views as to the merits of that. I am giving my reasons, based on my knowledge of flying and what I know about the incident, why I feel the parties have every right and possibly good reasons for bring a law suit. For me,this has no bearing on the qualifications of the pilots, assuming they meet the legal requirerments, or the type of flying done in Belize ie, IFR or VFR. It is a legal question ie, law suit. Was the law followed or broken? And if broken, what should the penalties be? Seems simple to me.

I love those great pilots, they are super.

Just a hypothetical question to ponder and not meant to refer to any pilots in particular. But if a pilot put your life endanger by breaking the law and flew the aircraft into conditions causing it to crash, would you still consider him to be great and super? :rolleyes:

After thinking about my answer to your question bywarren, the following popped into my vacant mind... I would need to know if I was still alive after the crash?

bywarren
All good points, the pilots are put in a bad position, if they don't bend/brake rules there would be lots of delays, turn arounds and lack of delivery. I assume in this situation the pilot made a judgement call based on his experience and got caught in some unexpected weather condition and crashed. I think that the point that everyone is bothered about in US at least is frivilous lawsuits. Everyone walked away, most damage they could have had was mental trama. Hard to judge. Awards depend on the quality of the lawyer. If no one was injured should they sue or consider it part of going to Belize. KGB

Answer is YES, because I knew the time of day I was boarding the plane, and it was my decision to fly then or not. And if I were in the last group of tourists flying to AC, I would climb aboard. But I am old, and don't worry much now.

Twilight could be a grey area of the law?

I will preface my remarks as I did earlier by saying that I would not sue if I were in that plane. But I will again say, that I cannot agree that this would fall under my definition of a frivilous law suit and I do not believe that the criteria to be met before someone files suit is they have to be killed or injured. There is a point of law called punative damages. Now I am not a lawyer and hesitate to comment on legal issues. I am just giving my opinion. But I am a pilot with a multi-engine, instrument rating and over 5000 hrs flying with 49 flights to Belize in my log book and I know what rules pilots are supposed to follow. And I know when pilots do not follow the rules, they open themselves up to suffering consequences.

Hi KBG, missed you at the partee this year! I still have my ticket and since I had the Lens Implants I could (perhaps) still pass the phys. It has been almost 20 years since I was at the stick. I'm sure after a couple hours with an instructor I could again (perhaps) make a simple takeoff and landing in good weather. In the past (before GPS) We all have taken off VFR and had to file IFR when our destination closed. I did that long before I even held an instrument rating. Was that illegal? You bet, but there was no incident and that made everything OK. Thanks bywarren for reminding me about the new stuff, GPS. I guess I dated myself with the Steerman comment, there were other training aircraft available but not to a poor boy. You took the ride where you found it. In my case, I had to refill the chem tanks, pull the tree limbs out of the controls surfaces and wash the nasty gook off in return for lessons. I flew inverted, did loops long before I could drive a car (we didn't have one). Now back to the original question, was the cause of the accident pilot error? From what I have read, yes. Do they have a right to sue? Yes. Will they win big? I doubt it. How long will you be there by?

I will miss you Ernie, unless you come to Arkansas (open invitation). I am gone from AC for the summer.