An acquaintance of mine - not a close friend, but someone I have worked with - is missing and presumed dead following a light plane accident in the Rocky Mountains 2 weeks ago. The pilot, who had recently taken a one-day introduction to mountain flying, apparently offered her a sight-seeing trip; on the return journey, as nearly as I can piece together from the newspaper reports, he took off between two weather fronts. Running into a front in a narrow mountain pass is bad enough, but having your escape route cut off by a second front behind you is about as bad as it can get, IMO. The weather at his destination was scattered thunderstorms more or less all day, but it's unlikely that made a difference, as they probably never got close to completing the journey. It appears they either flew into the trees and went straight down, or flew directly into the side of a mountain, probably in blinding rain. The ELT did not activate and SAR never found any sign of them.

Now, IMO the pilot should have known better. However, the passengers, like most non-pilots, simply trusted him to know what he was doing; they lacked the training and the knowledge that would have told them this was an accident waiting to happen.

Assuming that we can't sit all our loved ones down and run them through 3 weeks of intensive ground school, what tips would you give a non-pilot that would enable them to decide whether the pilot they were about to entrust their lives to was worthy of that trust? What are some simple rules of thumb that a non-pilot could learn easily? What is the most important thing, in your opinion, that a non-pilot should learn, in order to make an informed go/no-go decision?

I am planning to run a Flight Safety Proficiency (something like a Boy Scout Merit Badge) for our Saint John Ambulance cadets in the fall. The stated guidelines for this proficiency indicate approximately 5 hours of training. In the wake of this tragedy, I have decided to incorporate some basic training in making go/no-go decisions for non-pilots. Any advice this forum can offer will be greatly appreciated.