A pilot and his passenger died in a light aircraft crash while taking a 10-minute short cut on their way home from climbing Ben Nevis for charity, an inquest heard.
Pilot Tony Woodward, 62, had deviated off his flight plan when their plane crashed into the sea in fog in visibility of just 130ft.
He and Robert Archer, 57, were descending at 500ft per minute when they died on impact off Skipness, on Kintyre, on May 25, 2017.
The pair had flown from Carlisle Lake District Airport to Oban five days earlier and completed an ascent of Ben Nevis to raise more than £2000 for the Shooting Star Chase children’s charity with their friend Peter Ogilvie.
The inquest into the death of passenger Robert, from Romford, Essex, heard Tony was not qualified to fly in the poor visibility conditions.
Concluding Robert’s death was accidental, area coroner Graeme Irving said there were low clouds or fog south of Lochgilphead at the time of the crash, which reduced visibility so much that the plane was effectively being flown using instruments only.
He said the pilot only had 12.5 hours of instrument flying training but added: “He was not qualified and had not completed the required training to fly unsupervised in IMC (instrument only) conditions.”
Floating wreckage and the bodies of the two men were later recovered from the sea between the Mull of Kintyre and the Isle of Arran.
Walthamstow Coroner’s Court in London heard Tony used a short cut to his flight plan on both legs of the journey which would have shortened the journey by 10 minutes.
It avoided him having to climb over hills but the coroner said: “However, the route would have taken him towards an area of low visibility.”
During the return flight to Carlisle, air traffic controllers raised the alarm after communication with the chartered Piper PA-28 Cherokee aircraft stopped.
A post-mortem examination gave Robert’s cause of death as “multiple injuries” with a second cause of “aircraft crash”.
