In article . net,
"Hilton" wrote:

Neil Gould wrote:
Recently, Hilton posted:

Having said all that, yes, the decision to go was extremely bad -
that's why I called this thread 'Angry'. But once the pilot was in
IMC, why could he not do a 180 after he had just very recently
finished the training and checkride to do just that?

As I read it, part of the problem was that he was lost, as it sounded like
he was in IMC soon after he was up. So, the likely outcome is that he
would have crashed elsewhere.

He took off, turned east, flew a few minutes, and entered IMC. Kinda
obvious the airport was west. Sure he asked ATC to get back to the airport,
but he wasn't lost in the sense that he didn't know his (approximate)
position.

Saying "...the likely outcome is that he would have crashed elsewhere."
doesn't make sense. I have heard numerous ATC recordings of people that fly
into IMC and had ATC to help them to a VFR airport. Had this pilot
maintained control of the aircraft using instruments, I have no doubt ATC
could have vectored him back to E16 or even SJC.

Hilton

There is another factor not mentioned here. About 10 years ago, a friend
did some radar surveying for San Jose and found a radar hole in the
vicinity of South County, up to about 3000 ft. It is possible that the
pilot, thinking he would have instantaneous radar, took off, attempted
to raise SJC Approach and maintained heading right into the hills.

There is no excuse for his instructor(s) or flight school to turn him
loose without at least a rudimentary knowledge of the risks involved
with scudrunning (especially at night, in the hills).

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