Orval Fairbairn wrote:
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.

Orval,

I have flown in that area MANY times (I fly out of RHV) and never heard of
that radar hole, I've also never heard ATC even mention it to me or anyone
else. Do you have any additional information on it? have they 'plugged the
hole' by now?

I find it very surprising that he took off and called SJC tower which is
23nm NW when he was going East. They could pick him up and correctly handed
him off the Departure. Why did he call the tower? Perhaps he didn't
know/remember the freq of Departure, perhaps his papers fell on the floor,
perhaps he already had his hands full with the IMC and did a little CRM,
perhaps it was his inexperience... For a low time pilot, dialling in
120.7/124.0, calling them, squawking some number and identing, waiting,
having them say "sorry, call 120.1", dialing that in, calling them, etc...
must have been a huge distraction given the 'bad' conditions he was in.
Just some things that jumped out at me while reading the report.

But again, a visit to Starbucks on that cloudy night would have been the
better option. Sad.

FYI: The crash site was only 4nm east of E16.

Hilton